A Short Rant on Love

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

I just love love. I probably write that a lot, but it's true. Out of all the many things I've learned this past year, learning about love is the one thing that is most important. Before college, I didn't truly understand love or its importance. I knew it was the second greatest command, but I thought I was doing it right. I just had to treat others the way I wanted to be treated, right? I just had to make sure I reacted correctly to the people God placed in my life and make sure I was doing 'the right thing' so they could see how great of a Christian I was. How arrogant!

1 Corinthians 16:14

Love cannot be complacent. It is not sitting around and waiting for God to drop people in front of you, but it is actively seeking out people to love (as my last post says). It is being compassionate for people and really caring about them more than yourself. It should define the Christian's life. If we weren't supposed to love, we'd probably die after we were saved. What else would God need us here for? But we are still here! He obviously has a job for us still. Granted, He does want to grow us personally, too. But according to 1 Corinthians, we are nothing without love and this is mainly how we grow, anyway. We are here to glorify Him and loving directly does this because God is love.

This verse has just really hit me hard and I think it really sums up my personal testimony at this point in my life. My prayer is to share it so that it can really soak in to all who read it. It is the reason my blog is named agape. Christ's love is what I have been trying to shape my life around because it is so much more powerful than knowledge, human wisdom, or anything else of my own effort.