Thursday 13 May 2010

Love and service.

1 Corinthians 13

The Greatest Gift
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. 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. 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.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5does 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. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I have recently been going through with my church a gifting course. God gives us various different gifts to be used in the church and I was interested to know what mine are. This week really struck home with me when we talked about 1 corinthians 13. Its such a famous set of verses and is heard at a lot of weddings but I never really realised what it was saying. It's actually so simple that i do not believe that i have missed it in all the times I have read this before. Paul is talking here in previous chapters about spiritual gifts and the unity of the church. Then he goes on to talk about the greatest gift.
It never really struck me before how much importance God places in love being the central point of us using our gifts. In fact if love is not present then what we are doing is worthless. look at verses 1-3 below

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. 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. 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.

It profits me nothing in verse 3 and that is despite having gifts that many in the church would consider to be the good one's. Let us be honest with each other that when we look at the gifts we put them in an order that there are some that are better than others. Speaking in tongues, prophesies, preaching and teaching are some of what we would call the top gifts. They are the big ones that we believe will make us look good in front of our fellow believers and lets face it who does not like the respect and praise they would bring. But without love they profit us nothing. Further than that who is it we are wanting to impress. When we serve are we trying to impress the crowd? Not only should we be exercising our gifts in love but we should only care about what God thinks of us.

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