Listen

If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Think

I once attended a middle school band Christmas concert. At the peak moment of one of the quiet introspective carols, a middle school drummer dropped a cymbal. There was no chance that this would go unnoticed. Even the band came to a temporary halt.

As awkward as that was, there are moments when I see or hear someone speaking in the name of God, and this passage comes to mind. Their words are not words of love, but rather divisiveness, hate, and self-righteousness. I cannot help but wonder where love is found in the spirit of the words they use.

Paul is writing to the church at Corinth about their behaviors and is ultimately chastising them for claiming a spiritual bond with Christ that is rendered meaningless because their actions are lacking love.

Our words and actions must match in demonstrating God’s love. As loud and out of place as that dropped cymbal was, so should the incongruence ring in our heads when our words or actions are representative of anything less than God’s love.

Brian Foreman

Pray

Teach me, O God, to play along with the beautiful chords of your love for humanity. May the song you sing over us be the one we sing to the world around us. Amen.

Go

You are God’s.

You are loved.

You are known.

Let God’s love speak to you.

Let God’s love be known through you.

Amen.