Daily Java: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”- 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
There was a girl in my youth group who felt it her Christian duty to tell people stuff. If she didn’t think the sermon was his best, she would tell the preacher that. If something someone was wearing wasn’t as good as it was yesterday, she would tell them. She almost delighted in pointing out problems in people's lives. And she thought she was doing it in the name of God. “I have to tell the truth,” she would say. But what she did was make people irritated.
It was not so much what she said, it was how she said it. The best advice, the most beautiful language in the world, the best phrasing and illustrations, the finest crafted homiletical masterpiece in the world is worthless if it is not spoken in love.
You can take a lot from a person if you know that person loves you, or at least cares about what they are saying. That is exactly why a parent can discipline a child physically and the child still love them. They know the parent did it because they loved the child. The discipline was needed, yes, but when done with no love, it becomes abuse.
It doesn’t matter what you do, if you do not do it in love, both for God and for others. You can prophesy, you can explain stuff to a fantastic degree, you can believe in something so strongly that you can accomplish great and wonderful things, but if you don’t have love, it is nothing.
That is why works will not save us. Lots of people give to the poor, and will even be self-sacrificing. But if they do not love God and those they sacrifice for, it is worthless.
Everything in the world is worthless if you do not have love. Nothing is good without it.
The tragedy is living your life in a self-sacrificing mode, but in the end lacking the love that should have motivated it. Kind of like slapping a fully decorated birthday cake down in front of someone you don’t like. Your lack of love removes all the joy from the gift.
Keep doing the stuff, but look to your motivations.
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