Love or Nothing

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 NASB)

I do a lot of stuff at my church.  Others do more, many do what I do better, but I still do a lot of stuff.   Probably, the response of my Master is like, 'Yay, but do you love others?'  He's probably not that impressed, and not because others do more and many do it better.  He's probably not impressed because One making stars doesn't look at the work of lessor beings and go, 'Impressive!'  It just doesn't happen that's all.

What my Master has done that He is most proud of is love His created people.  He showed this through Jesus paying the price for the sins of the entire world.  So, what impresses Him isn't what I can do for Him, but that I love because of Him.  When that happens, it means His human creatures are 'getting it'; they are learning the lesson of Jesus and truly following Him.  In a sense, it means all the suffering on the part of the Creator of the universe was worth it, it had an effect.

But that's not how I have measured my life before.  Before it was always by what I can do/have done for God.  I'm in this role, I've done that role, I believe that, teach this, said whatever, oh, and these people like me.  As it turns out, my Master doesn't really care about that. 

My wife took a trip to talk to her dad about Jesus and lay it out there.  His health is failing, and we're not sure how long she'd be able to still do that and have him have any understanding of it.  He was very receptive, and his wife said she had already "accepted God in her heart".  He didn't accept right there, but she knew he would be thinking about it.  As she told me about it afterwards, I thought, "God doesn't give a 'theology exam' before accepting people."  This word wasn't precisely perfect, that word was a little off, but the core idea was there.

I don't know for sure but I'm confident anyway, that my degree in Bible and ministry hasn't 'saved' anyone.  To my knowledge, no body has said, 'Wow, that guy really knows a lot about God, I want to live like he does.'  At least, no one has told me that's what it was that caused them to seek God.  Not that I've wasted 10 years of my life chasing a useless vocational degree.  I'm just saying that it's not the 'qualifier' or 'edge' in my relationship with Jesus. 

At the gates of Heaven, Jesus won't be checking 'pedigree' or certifications or other initials past my name as I enter His heaven.  The single question will be was my name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.  He won't ask me, He'll just look down his list of names.  Either I'm in there or I'm not.  I find it ironic that there will be this judgement of the works of people, but then all of it, and all those judged are thrown into the lake of fire with the devil and his minions (Revelation 20:11-15).  So it's never been what I do, but that I love, first Jesus, and because of what He's done for me, everyone else.

So, the lesson of these introductory verses is that nothing else accomplishes for me what love does.  It's the first lesson.  And I will see from tomorrow's entry that I suck at it.  Lovely.  I'm busy, but I'm wasting my time without love.  I'm active, but a hamster-on-a-wheel without love.  I'm whatever, but not before the throne of my Master, Who only wants to know that I love.  Hmmm...