TIME OF REFLECTION - NOTHING WITHOUT LOVE

“If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (I Corinthians 13: 1, NIV).

It is possible to have every human skill and every spiritual gift, to speak with the eloquence of an orator or sing with the voice of an angel, to have limitless knowledge of the present and awesome wisdom that see far into the future, to demonstrate great faith and sacrificial self-giving, but it is all worth nothing, nothing at all, without LOVE.

Eugene Peterson's paraphrase (I Corinthians 13: 1 - 3) - The Message) – “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, ‘Jump,’ and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”

The Love Chapter is a mirror. What do I see as I look at myself? Love that is gentle, sincere, God-like, or a rusty gate creaking on its hinges?

My Prayer:

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All His wonderful passion and purity,
O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.
(SACB 77)