I chose the way of emotion and let my hurt determine my course of actions. It’s not that my pain didn’t matter. Oh it matters; He cares. Still, I fed my emotion, ignored Truth and believed the lie. Love wasn’t my theme. I was sounding brass.

1 Corinthians 13 {NKJV}

 1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

When my friend, Amanda, began visiting our church I worried all too much about what I thought might hinder her. I got caught up in my own what ifs. Yet after her third Sunday visit she shared so beautifully what really grabbed her heart as a group of women huddled together in prayer—love.

They were hugging, holding hands & touching one another on the shoulder. It was beautiful! I wanted to run up to them & hop in the middle & say, “Can I join in?” You can see they genuinely cared for one another. It honestly inspired me.

It didn’t stop there. In the pew right in front of us she saw the love of Christ yet again as two other women repeated nearly the same scenario. Love. Isn’t this what the Body of Christ should look like?

The details of that service weren’t up to me. Had I “prepared” her for what I thought she needed I would’ve gotten in His way. I’ve done that all too often. Sadly, we, the Church, continue to miss the mark when we choose our own way and fail to let love be our theme.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

It’s not enough to know the Truth, see the need and recognize the Answer. Does not Satan, himself, know the truth? Love is the vehicle in which Truth is carried.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

We can teach and preach and hold our functions and send out missions but if we miss love it profits nothing. We play our instruments and sing our songs and teach our children Scripture but without love woven through our giving and doing it profits nothing.

It’s time that we, the Church, get back to basics, return to our first Love and love because He first loved us. Let’s love others right in the midst of their issues and struggles. Let’s show compassion and bathe our words, prayers and actions in love without being so quick to insert an answer.

I know the answers in His Word for my current struggles. Yet in the walking out of Truth it’s the compassion of others and the validation of my own hurt and feelings that becomes balm to my soul.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails.

I need the love of Christ through His Body. So I want to be the love of Christ through His Body. To rise above the sounding brass and let His love flow to hurting people… to let the world know that His love still covers. Because by this shall all men know that we are His disciples…

that we have love one to another.

 

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