If I give everything I own to the poor
and even go to the stake to be
burned as a martyr,
but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere.
So, no matter
what I say, what I believe, and what I do,
I’m bankrupt without
love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love
doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a
swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of
truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the
best,
Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.
I read these verses today and just love The Message version of it. It is easy to read these verses and immediately think about the people around us..."Yeah, yeah...he should do this more, or she should react this way more."
But then, God does this little thing called "CONVICT". If we spend time with Him and we read these verses with an open heart and mind, He convicts!
I can do all the work in the world to save the orphans in Africa. I can travel there. I can take others. I can fundraise and quote scripture, but if I come home and don't tend to my family, if I use words that are not uplifting, if I ignore the needs of my husband...I HAVE NOTHING. It is all filthy rags.
I can share Jesus with the community, I can open my home for Bible study, I can talk with my friends about Christ, but if I fly off the handle with my children, or I don't trust God to provide for me, or I strut aound with pride and arrogance...well then...filthy rags!
You see the kind of love God wants is pure. It is free of pride. Free of self. Free of doing because I want to be seen as the one in the limelight. God's kind of love is WHITE AS THE FIRST SNOWFALL. There is no self-serving, no hopeful recognition, no personal reason to His kind of love.
And oh dear Lord how I fail at that. How I make the story about me. How I put myself into stories where I don't belong. How I allow others to puff me up and lack the trust in you I so desire. Dear Lord, cleanse me. Give me the love you describe in these verses. Help me to give not to get. Help me to share just to share. Help me to deflate myself and inflate you. Help me to trust when I don't see.
Happy Tuesday!
Jen
