All You Need Is Love

I'm sorry for missing yesterday.  I thought the flu bug was catching up to me, I had a lot of symptoms, but I never spiked a fever, and I'm feeling much better so far this morning.  It started Sunday afternoon, maybe it was some kind of 24 hour thing.  Anyway, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth - gotta lot to do, so I'm ready to move on now!

As I said last week, we are going to look at 1 Corinthians this week.  And because the driving force behind the Ten Commandments was love, I thought we'd start in the "love" chapter, chapter 13.  For today's musings, I'm using the Message version.  (Side note - I love the Message.  But remember that the Message is a paraphrase, not a translation.  In other words, the author of the Message is simply restating the already-translated-into-English versions of the Bible in modern language.  So he might not always get it right.  It's important to also use a translation in your studies, so you know it is based on the original Greek or Hebrew.  But the Message can also bring something into focus by using modern language, creating an avenue for us to re-think the way we've always thought about certain passages in the Bible.)

Let's start at the beginning of the chapter:  "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." (verses 1-3)

I love the last sentence:  "I'm bankrupt without love."  Just as love is the driving force behind God's rules for us, so is love the driving force behind EVERYTHING God does for us.  Creation was done for love.  Look it - he could have made a few mountains.  But He made beautiful mountains, full and majestic, with ranges all over the world.  He made the Smokies, where everything looks, well, smoky, and the Blue Ridge, where things appear, well, blue . . . you get my drift.  We wouldn't have known any better.  He could have made three really high mountains and called it a day.  But He didn't.  He longs to share His ability to make beauty with us.  And why?  Because of love.

We cannot have love if  we do not know love.  And we do not truly know love if we don't know Him.  In the above passage, we could substitute God for the word love.  Check this out:  "If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love (have God's 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 (have God's 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 (have God's love), I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love (God's love)."  

It's nearly impossible to try to love others on our own power.  I love my husband and my child - I know without a doubt I would die for them.  But sometimes . . . oh, they drive me crazy!  When I'm trying to show them love on my own ability, after awhile, that love falters.  I don't have it in me!  It's only when our love is drawn from the well of God's love that we can shower it on others.

I think I'm going to end here for today.  I have more to say!  But I would challenge you to think on those times in your life, those people in your life, who are difficult to love.  Are you allowing God's love to pour into your life, so that it can overflow into the lives of others?  Remember, this passage says that no matter what else you do - no matter how many Sunday School classes you teach, no matter how many boards and committees you serve on, no matter how much faith you have, without love - it's meaningless.  Love is where it all begins.

Tomorrow we are going to compare 1 Corinthians with Ecclesiastes.  Fun!  ;0)  And we are also going to answer the statement I've heard lately:  "You think God is love.  But God is also judgment."  So stay tuned!