Work With Love
1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
This little portion of scripture, is by far some of the most powerful set of verses I have personally read. It has shapped my life, attitude, and desire of the kind of man I pray and strive to be. Because of the influence of this scripture there are a few responses I have seen taken, and even taken myself, that are a little extreme when reading passages of this magnitude.
One response to this might be, "If there is no love in those works then I just want to love and forget the works." It is not hard to see why this response might be chosen, after all, it does say that if we do not love we have nothing, and it will profit us nothing. In essence it is saying that we can do these excellent works, but without love we are nothing, and the works are vain. The feel from this passage is that our measure is the measure of love, not the credibility of our works. Just left at that the response seems logical and accepted, but what about this:
Ephesians 2
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
What do we do with that? If we read this scripture to the last response of, "I will just love and forget the works," then how do we reconcile these two? Instead of just choosing love without works, what if we chose love with works? What would be the harm if we did speak tongues of men and angels, prophesied, knew all mysteries and all knowledge, had faith to literally move mountains, gave our possessions to feed the poor, and surrendered our body to be burned? What if we actually did all of that with love? Imagine how powerful the body of Christ would be if we walked in those works with a love that strong.
The problem with the first response of just choosing love without works is that we choke out the dreams God has put in us to do great things and to change the world. I say do the works, and let the dreams of God in us live, we will learn love. We should not put off work because we think it is loveless, if that is our attitude when will we ever work with love? We should work, and we should work with love from God. Live the dreams of God in you, and work with love. In doing so we will share in the power of Christ. Amen.
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
This little portion of scripture, is by far some of the most powerful set of verses I have personally read. It has shapped my life, attitude, and desire of the kind of man I pray and strive to be. Because of the influence of this scripture there are a few responses I have seen taken, and even taken myself, that are a little extreme when reading passages of this magnitude.
One response to this might be, "If there is no love in those works then I just want to love and forget the works." It is not hard to see why this response might be chosen, after all, it does say that if we do not love we have nothing, and it will profit us nothing. In essence it is saying that we can do these excellent works, but without love we are nothing, and the works are vain. The feel from this passage is that our measure is the measure of love, not the credibility of our works. Just left at that the response seems logical and accepted, but what about this:
Ephesians 2
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
What do we do with that? If we read this scripture to the last response of, "I will just love and forget the works," then how do we reconcile these two? Instead of just choosing love without works, what if we chose love with works? What would be the harm if we did speak tongues of men and angels, prophesied, knew all mysteries and all knowledge, had faith to literally move mountains, gave our possessions to feed the poor, and surrendered our body to be burned? What if we actually did all of that with love? Imagine how powerful the body of Christ would be if we walked in those works with a love that strong.
The problem with the first response of just choosing love without works is that we choke out the dreams God has put in us to do great things and to change the world. I say do the works, and let the dreams of God in us live, we will learn love. We should not put off work because we think it is loveless, if that is our attitude when will we ever work with love? We should work, and we should work with love from God. Live the dreams of God in you, and work with love. In doing so we will share in the power of Christ. Amen.
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