Have not LOVE!
1 Corinthians 13:2”……..though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
This is such a vast subject that I need a gigantic canvas to cover the whole gamut of views regarding love, let me start writing a few and I plead you to search your hearts and make amendments during the process of reading. There are deep signs of ‘pride, ego, hurt, bruises and bitterness’, seated in the inner, hidden crevices of our hearts that hinders love. Let go off it like releasing a locked up bird! Identify and crucify them with the help of Jesus! We can make “blowing-off steam” posts in a jiffy on the Facebook wall or through texting, emailing or simply call and bombard over phone and feel mightily relieved but it needs gigantic strength from God and His love to swallow an insult or hurt! Love suffers long and is kind!
How do you react when you hear someone speak English with a regional accent or with grammatical errors? Pride urges us to lampoon them, but love urges us to forbear. How do you react when someone sings out of scale? It sure gets on the nerves for seasoned musicians but love restrains us and helps us to teach them patiently. How do I handle students who repeatedly disobey, come late and bunk school for frivolous reasons? His love helps me to run the show…….
Did you know there is desperate dearth of love inside the church, among the body of Christ, among the worship team, among the Bible college students? I write this exasperated! We got to plead God for endurance when we are snubbed, overtaken and ignored, there would be loads and loads of opportunities for this in the Christian walk. As simple as adjusting with fellow musicians is lacking in the area of worship inside the church – everybody wants to flaunt their skills! Result is chaos! We need love to humbly submit to circumstances. Recently in a big meeting, which was planned and prepared in the midst of lot of pain and struggle, the drums player had a tug of war with the sound system operator in a ‘Christian prayer meeting’, because he felt he was not heard well. Man, this is painful!
Apostle Paul says in verse 4, ‘love does not parade itself, is not puffed up!’ Christian love teaches us to be hidden like the silkworm, when she weaves her curious work, hides herself under the silk, and is not seen but we have more peacocks in the Christian field rather than silkworms. Are you listening? We have more people desperate to usurp the platform rather than kneel, pray and wait for God’s timing!
Recently I wept at the altar of the Lord, pleading Him to shower His love upon me, so that I could handle the various projects given to me by the Lord with integrity and love. How do I handle church members who repeatedly walk in late, how do I handle youngsters who carelessly treat God even after baptism and I have a more gigantic issue of handling rebellious kids with toughness and oodles of love as well. I just cannot do this without Him! Amen. We need refill of His love everyday! We fume, fret, kick, swear, curse and grind our teeth because we lack His love.
What we hear and see around is violence, revenge, crime, anger and quarrels depicted in every form of media today, but flip the pages of the Bible and turn your eyes to the life history of Jesus and you would read about His compassion, love, forgiveness and humility that would surely transform us.
Being a Christian is not enough, we need Christ-like transformation!
Humbly,
Bala
