“If I could speak all the languages of earth and angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possess all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
The first two weeks of February are always filled with reminders of Valentine’s day. In every grocery store, there are aisles stocked with chocolate and every shade of red we could think of. On social media, there are constant reminders that the day is approaching and an extra emphasis is placed on our relationship status. I know almost everyone with an influential platform is using this month to talk about love and relationships, but I want to take a different approach. Yes, I will be talking about love this month, but I want to dig deeper by separating the Lord’s definition of love from the world’s. So to start this series off, I want to dig deeper into 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
In these scriptures, Paul is explaining to the church of Corinth that without love nothing we do in the kingdom would matter. Ultimately, love needs to be at the center of everything we do for it to be successful in God’s eyes. As much as we like to associate love with relationship status, it’s more than that. As I’ve been studying the topic of forgiveness, I’ve learned, love is about a heart posture. If love isn’t in our hearts while we’re trying to serve the Lord in our daily lives, then we’re doing it all wrong. He cares about the position of our hearts more than the direction of our hands and if the motive behind our actions isn’t pure, He’s not going to acknowledge it.
I think in our self-centered culture, we’ve forgotten about the beauty in doing things for others without considering how it's going to benefit ourselves. I am a firm believer that the source of all motives and intentions is understanding. If we fully understood how our actions would affect other people, we would make different choices. If we truly understood how much of an impact putting love behind our intentions would make on those around us, we’d make more of an effort to do that. So what does it mean to allow love to pour out of our hearts and through our actions?
The love of God is the true and ultimate example of what love is. He sacrificed His Son so we could live a life of redemption and free of shame. He thought of our sin and decided there needed to be a way for all of us to have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and more chances. Jesus went through so much pain, suffering, and heartbreak so we could have a relationship with our heavenly father. I know these events are extreme and hard for our minds to understand, but Jesus was fully human. He had all the same emotions we have, so who better to look at for an example of love than Him?
Jesus wasn’t thinking about getting the glory for the miracles He performed, instead, He was focused on fulfilling the mission God gave Him. His intentions were not to show off in front of anyone, He simply wanted to bring people closer to the father. It takes a lot to set aside our desires to make room for someone else’s but as believers, it’s something we have to do.
Ultimately, love rests in our motives and our motives are directly related to the posture of our heart. What’s in our heart flows through us and comes out through our actions and words. As the word love is used throughout the rest of this week, think about how it’s shown in your life. Are you doing things to get praise or to prove something to others? Or are you doing it out of the love for God’s people? Paul said it best, our gifts work best when the source is love.
Xoxo,
Girl with Grace