So I got to sit in on one of my Dads Bible studies before I left home after Christmas and they were covering the first little bit of 1st Corinthians. Specifically verses 1-3. These verses say,
“1.Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing”
Now as we were going through this passage I noticed something… without Love everything pretty much sucks. Just in this passage we learn that without love: No one listens to you, you have nothing, and you get nothing. Now you might be saying, “well that is a bit extreme.” But take a minuet to look at it again.
Verse one is all about the mouth, and what comes out of it. In verse it says that, even if you can the most beautiful elegant speaker of all time, but dont have Love, you sound like clanging metal… No one listens to clanging metal, I personally tend to just block it out. Think back to the last time you saw someone, or you yourself, chewed someone out. Not to try to get them to do something better, but just chewed them out just because. That person that was getting chewed out, odds are they were not really listening, and most of the people will just tell them to shrug it off and forget it, because the yeller was out of line. They don't listen. If you are speaking without Love NO ONE LISTENS.
Now on to verse two. This one is all about your brain, your ability to understand and comprehend, along with faith. Now most people wold be like “Dang… he can move mountains, understand everything, he has got this mental and spiritual stuff down”. But here it states that you can have all of these things, but if you dont have Love, you might as well have no understanding at all. If you don't have Love, YOU HAVE NOTHING.
Now for verse three. This one is all about the physical. Even if you give everything you have away, even if you become a martyr, even if you go and buy things for homeless people, you feed hungry kids, you can donate to charity, you can go to North Coreia and yell out “I AM A CHRISTIAN”, you can do all of the things, but if you don't do it with Love, you might as well not do it at all. It “prophets you nothing”, in other words YOU GET NOTHING from it!
Looking around at the church today it is very difficult for me to find the love, some people it is very obvious that they do things out of love, but others it is much harder to tell. We as Christians need to get back to doing things, not because it is the "good Christian thing to do" not because that is the way we have always done it, but to do it because of LOVE!
Without Love everything is pretty much meaningless.
