By David ReayThursday 30 Oct 2014LifeWords DevotionalsCultureReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love,I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 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.
3-7 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 MESSAGE)
One of the big traps in Christian ministry is to begin to love the ministry more than Jesus,to love what it does for us above the people to whom we minister. We can so easily become busy professionals (whether paid or volunteer). We fill our schedules with activities and our diaries with appointments but somehow the heart and the fire has gone out of it. We have become the person Paul describes here: one bankrupt without love,one who makes a bit of noise but for so little effect.
There is no neat technique at hand to recover love-either of God or others,and the two go together anyway. We can only pray each day for a refreshing of the love poured into our hearts by the Spirit of God. We can’t manufacture it ourselves. We can make ourselves busy and organise practical things out of our own resources,which is why we do all this so often. But it is another thing altogether to do things out of love.
Let’s never boast about how much we do,or how busy we are. After all,what is the use of having many irons in the fire if the fire is going out?
Blessings
David Reay