| devotional by: Jimmy Needham |
Added: 06-04-2007 |
Nothing Without Love
“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. 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. And if I give all my possessions to the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
Have you ever seen a bad band perform live? I’m not talking “turn that stuff down” bad. I mean [totally] ugly, brings you to tears, pray-for-the-band-while-they’re-on-stage bad. I auditioned for a talent show my freshman year of high school. During auditions I got to hear some of the competition. One of the bands that showed up was called Lethal Rejection (charming, isn’t it?). Watching them perform was quite interesting. It was one of those performances where you find yourself looking around to see if anyone else has the same confused, pained face listening to them as you do. It both looked and sounded like the lead singer was throwing up into the mic. Needless to say, they got lethally rejected by the judges. I remember hearing the angered comments after they found out they didn’t make the cut. I heard things like, “they just don’t understand” or “they're biased against the music”. The truth was the band just wasn’t good. Their “music” was just noise. Though the band was convinced that their sound was appealing to the ear, the judges thought otherwise, and as we all know, the judge always has the final say.
Let me ask you a question. Are you noisy?
Paul chose some obnoxious instruments in these verses, didn’t he? A cymbal and a gong, I mean, they’re just plain noisy. A loud bang, a shattering crash; honestly, who likes hearing those sounds by themselves? Can you remember the last time you popped in your favorite CD and it was nothing but gongs and cymbals? The truth is that these instruments are really nothing apart from full orchestration. They were designed to compliment the melody instruments. By the way, did you know that in Paul’s day the gong and the cymbal were both instruments associated with pagan worship rituals? What could Paul be saying to us? I think he might be saying something like this: You can do all the holy, spiritual things you like all day long. You can pray, prophecy, believe till you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t have the deep rooted love of Almighty God in your hearts as the motivator for those actions, you might as well be a bunch of God-hating pagans, because the LORD’s people act from love, and not zeal alone.
Buckle your seatbelts, kids; God doesn’t fool around. This is serious business to Him. Lest we forget that we can, with great ease, serve God in miraculous ways and still wind up in hell. That’s what happened to the folks in Matthew 7:22-23. Their list of good deeds was as long as a football field. They performed miraculous signs and wonders. They even cast out demons in Jesus’ name. Yet in their hearts they did not love God. God doesn’t want a bunch of guru prophets and zealous martyrs. He wants people who love Him.
Here’s what I’d like to challenge you to do. Take some time to chat with God. Ask Him if there are places in your life where you are not acting out of love for Him. For me, it was in sharing the Gospel with people. I had such zeal for God in that area. I was bound and determined to talk to as many people as I could about Jesus because after all, Jesus needed me. Do you know where all of my zeal left me? It left me either prideful when I talked to lots of people in a day, or guilty when I didn’t. I got totally burned out. Why? Because when I spoke to those people, my heart was not stirred with love for them or love for Jesus. I just wanted to check “witnessing” off my list of things to do so my conscience could rest easy. I’m finally starting to walk in love and let me tell you, it is so freeing. I pray today you would ask for the same work to be done in your heart as well.
Remember, our biggest goal in this life is to look more and more like our Father (Ephesians 5:1). Our God modeled how we should look in His own love for us. The most moving picture of this is Jesus Christ, God Himself, who was nailed to a piece of wood so we could be with our Father in heaven. Doesn’t that sound like the kind of person you want to model your life after? Spend some time meditating on this today and see if God doesn’t start to change your heart, and help you to love as He loves. May you make beautiful music to the LORD all the days of your life as He moves you to love Him and others, and may your joy be made complete.
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