Do nothing without love
Anything done without love as the foundation is worth nothing. If I speak elegantly and with more power than angels, but do not have love, I am just noise. Without love, I just get in the way. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I have to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

I want to help change other’s lives, but I must know my intentions. If I am working and serving and speaking for the sake of feeling good, or taking pride in the results, or having others think well of me, I am not doing anything worthwhile. Love must be the foundation. When I walk into a room, I want my first thought to be “What does God want to do in each and every person in this room and how can I be used to accomplish that?” I want every person I come in contact with to come in contact with the Jesus in me, not just me. I want all who come near to feel God’s love. I want to be a fire burning bright, such that others can come close and light their candles.

What does love look like?
 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Replace “love” with your name. Does it still hold true? We need love to become a part of everything we do. Every person we come in contact with should see this love, not just the ones who love us. Very often we find ourselves thinking: “well they don’t like me, they haven’t done anything for me, and they keep taking and taking and taking. They don’t deserve my love”. But we should have the mindset of Jesus. We shouldn’t hold our love from others. None of us deserve love. But we have been overflowed with it by The One Who Is Love.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. I began to love myself and others as God loves me. Little boys and girls are selfish and un-sacrificial. Real men and women know how to love, for while knowledge may make a man look large, it is love that makes him grow to his full stature. Today we have too many “boys who can shave” and “little girls in makeup”. They look like adults but inwardly they are selfish and self-centered. We must grow up. We must love with an unfailing love; a love that is not self-seeking, a love that understand sacrifice and discipline.

As we come to declare our love for God, we must face the unlovely and the lovely fellow sinners whom God loves and commands us to love. It requires very little of you to love a person who is pulled together and happy. Anybody can love someone who loves them back.

 Love never fails. Trust me. The only reason we can fail is because we are lacking love. I have seen love break down walls ever so thick. Love is the great conqueror. Where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

In the second Century AD, the Romans would take anyone who was contagious with a plague and hurl them outside the city. But there were Christians going and gathering up all the sick to take care of them. They were dying in other people’s places; For them, to live was Christ and to die was gain. Do you know what happened? The Faith exploded. Why? Because they were loving people, they were saving people, they were giving up themselves fully, knowing that they are loved by God and they are secure in the kingdom. In fact, there is documentation of a governor that tried to outlaw Christians because of how they were taking care of the poor; it made him angry. “They are loving their poor and our poor, and it’s growing like wildfire.” It revealed the evil and ineffectiveness of man. If we latch back on to loving people, evangelism in America will explode again.

Love is eternal
God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in perfect loving community. These three persons are in a constant state of loving, serving, and glorifying each other. This love has always existed and will always exist. God has infinite happiness not through self-centeredness, but through self-giving, other-centered love. And the only way we, who have been created in his image, can have the same joy, is if we center our entire lives around him instead of ourselves. Within God is a community of persons pouring glorifying, joyful love into one another. We were made in the image of God; we were made to be in a community, for God is community Himself. When we refuse to love others and be a part of community, we are refusing who God made us to be.

In this world, we only see love as a faint glimpse of what it truly is. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Once all things are renewed, we will no longer need faith or hope. But we will still continue to love. Might as well practice now, since we will be doing it for eternity.

Father, who do you want for me to love for you today? Let’s make it a habit to let love permeate everything we do.