1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (NASB)
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 [a]to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 [b]bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I'm sitting here with a sore jaw. I had a tooth extracted today and It's making me a little irritable. See, about 15 years ago, I had a cavity filled poorly. That tooth was never quite right after that and it turns out the drilling job weakened the tooth up to the point where this afternoon I was a eating a pretzel and the molar in question cracked right in half.
My tooth gets me to thinking about love and people of faith and the way we use our gifts. As broken people before a loving God, we can go one of two ways. We can either live by the old ways of our human nature, or we can live by love. Love is, of course, a prevailing theme in the Scriptures, love and redemption. Especially in the New Covenant teachings we see the theme surface over and over again. It's important. Love is the cement that seals the cracks in our broken hearts. When we fail to practice God's love, we weaken the structure of His Church and we weaken the hearts of His people.
The Apostle Paul puts it mostly in positives, but there are a few negatives as well. But look at love. Love doesn't lie. It doesn't try to destroy other people's relationships (not jealous). It's honest and patient. Love seeks the betterment of others, not the betterment of self, and so much more.
Just like my weakened tooth that was just waiting for the right pretzel to come along, when we act in a way that is opposite to the love of Jesus Christ, we weaken our brothers and sisters and may do irreparable damage.
So when we say: "I love you" to another person, we should keep this in mind. Are we just saying it because we think we should, or perhaps because we really mean what we say? Are we willing to give everything up for that person's well being, or are we more interested in what we can get out of the relationship.
As members of the fellowship of Christ, our actions should always be to the betterment of others. Selfishness is not love and has no place in the fellowship of Christ.
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