Portraying Love: A Fruit of the Spirit
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” 1Corinthians 13:1 NKJV
If we have the gift of tongues, that is being able to speak in other languages without learning them, or if we can speak all the languages in the world but don’t love others, it’s all for nothing. We aren’t serving God from our heart. As far as God is concerned, it’s just a lot of noise and show. In our relationship with God it’s our heart, our motive that counts.
This thirteenth chapter in Corinthians has a lot to say about love. Love is patient and kind.
It has a whole lot to say about what love isn’t also. Love doesn’t foster envy, or pride, nor a haughty attitude, rudeness or selfishness. If we love we don’t demand to have our way. And love hardly notices when others offend us.
The last part of love’s description in this chapter of love really warms my heart. When you love someone you are loyal to him, and believe in him, and even stand your ground defending him.
Don’t you want to experience that kind of love from others? I do. And I certainly want to portray that kind of love to others too. But how can we? Is anyone really ever so full of love?
Our society and technology today actually gets in the way of close relationships. Recorded voices inform us to leave a message at the beep. Instead of going inside at the gas station and chat we pay at the pumps. Most of us no longer go into the bank and start up a conversation with the teller. Instead we stop at the ATM. We even shop on line and miss out on the smiles of friendly staff. We have traded human contacts for electronic ones. It is easy to live in isolation.
Fortunately there are still many ways to connect with people and show love to them. Sometimes we may need to structure connections into our life. We need to plan on spending time with family, keeping up with friends, reading to our children, visiting grandpa and grandma, or visiting the sick.
There are many ways to show love at the office or your place of work. Just exchanging a few words with your co-workers at the water cooler showing interest in their lives, like asking where they went on vacation. Everything seems to be on a competition level. Instead we need to generously give of our time, expertise, or just attention to help some one out. What you give always comes back, multiplied.
Remembering that love is a fruit of the Spirit we know we don’t have to worry about conjuring up a ton of love when we walk into a place that makes us uncomfortable. It’s as we connect with God and let His love fill us that it overflows to the people around us. And the best part is that love begets love. When you smile at someone they smile back.
Bible Truths to Share with Your Kids:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” 1Corinthians 13:1 NKJV
If you play in a band or even just enjoy your favorite music on CD’s or the radio or the internet you know how loud brass instruments and cymbals can be. God says that’s all we are, a loud noise, if we try to save the world just to look good and have people honor us.
We admire clever people who know several languages. We stand in awe of people who understand and teach prophecy. If we knew anyone who had enough faith to move a mountain we would almost worship him, although that would be wrong. We honor someone like Mother Theresa who gave everything she had to help the poor. And then we humbly admire the martyrs who were burnt at the stake for teaching the Gospel.
These are all worthy, Christ like actions to be commended. Yet God says if we do any of these things or even all of them they are of no value to us spiritually at all unless we do them out of love; unless we do them to please God because we love Him or out of love for our fellow human being.
God wants us to show love to the people in our lives everyday. He nudges us to show kindness as we wait in line for the bus in the morning to let the girl with cerebral palsy get on first instead of bowling her over as we elbow our way in. He coaxes us to treat that kid to lunch who forgot his lunch or came without. He reminds us to respect and honor our teacher when the class gets unruly and causes a crisis.
These things may sound hard to do. We get so wrapped up in ourselves. But God wants us to love and to show love. Again, if we do these things to impress God or people we have it all wrong. And, yes, we can’t do these on our own strength. As we spend time with God He takes over in our desires and feelings and these things come naturally. And if we do them out of love for God then we please Him.
