“If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.”
I Corinthians 13:2 (Message)
“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
I Corinthians 13:2 (NIV)
I have very intentionally included the Message translation yesterday and today because it is so easy to ‘wax poetic’ when we read the 13th Chapter of First Corinthians and to simply close our eyes and picture the last wedding we attended where these verses have been read. The problem is that we often relegate the potent message these verses carry only to a couple exchanging vows.
Our prayer, through the message given on Sunday, is that you let the Holy Spirit impress them on your heart.
Personalize the words, don’t pass them off.
Paul is telling us that all of the gifts, expressed accurately and exercised to the deepest levels possible are useless if the one exercising them does not have love.
Go back and read that last sentence again but this time instead of just reading the word ‘useless’, I would like you to say it out loud.
As a matter of fact, shout it out loud.
Let it resonate in you and make a lasting impression because that is the value our gifts carry when they are used for any reason other than loving those to whom the gifts are being ministered.
If you are asking to be used by God in a particular gift, check your motivation.
Are you desiring this gift so that, through its use, others are brought deeper into relationship with God?
Is love drawing you?
And if I can say it this way; is the use of your gift drawing a picture of love to those who are impacted by that gift?
I think we sometimes can ‘dilute’ the power of God’s word when we take a text like this and see it as only applicable at weddings.
Don’t fall into that trap.
When we understand that it applies not just to a first century gathering of believers, not just to a blushing bride and her future husband, but to every one of us then the weight of that word suddenly bears on us.
Allow the love of God to so fill you that the prophetic word, the gift of faith and the knowledge He brings is soaked in that love and evident to all as you minister His gifts.
I Corinthians 13:2 (Message)
“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
I Corinthians 13:2 (NIV)
I have very intentionally included the Message translation yesterday and today because it is so easy to ‘wax poetic’ when we read the 13th Chapter of First Corinthians and to simply close our eyes and picture the last wedding we attended where these verses have been read. The problem is that we often relegate the potent message these verses carry only to a couple exchanging vows.
Our prayer, through the message given on Sunday, is that you let the Holy Spirit impress them on your heart.
Personalize the words, don’t pass them off.
Paul is telling us that all of the gifts, expressed accurately and exercised to the deepest levels possible are useless if the one exercising them does not have love.
Go back and read that last sentence again but this time instead of just reading the word ‘useless’, I would like you to say it out loud.
As a matter of fact, shout it out loud.
Let it resonate in you and make a lasting impression because that is the value our gifts carry when they are used for any reason other than loving those to whom the gifts are being ministered.
If you are asking to be used by God in a particular gift, check your motivation.
Are you desiring this gift so that, through its use, others are brought deeper into relationship with God?
Is love drawing you?
And if I can say it this way; is the use of your gift drawing a picture of love to those who are impacted by that gift?
I think we sometimes can ‘dilute’ the power of God’s word when we take a text like this and see it as only applicable at weddings.
Don’t fall into that trap.
When we understand that it applies not just to a first century gathering of believers, not just to a blushing bride and her future husband, but to every one of us then the weight of that word suddenly bears on us.
Allow the love of God to so fill you that the prophetic word, the gift of faith and the knowledge He brings is soaked in that love and evident to all as you minister His gifts.
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