Considering Motivation


1 Corinthians 13:1-13
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

I was tempted to write about all of 1 Corinthians 13 today, but the chapter is far too important for such a short examination. These 3 verses begin one of the most famous chapters of the Bible. You hear these words at a large percentage of weddings – Christian or secular because they speak of love. But if held up to scrutiny, we find that the reason for this chapter is not marriage. It’s the whole of our lives. Paul starts with the more “spectacular” gifts of tongues and prophecy. In all likelihood there was some abuse of these gifts among the church members and those who possessed these gifts were using them for self-aggrandizement rather than building up the Body of Christ. This is clearly not why the Spirit gives these gifts.

This chapter boils down to why we do what we do. And no one else truly knows what our motivations are except God and (usually) ourselves. It’s a difficult path to walk. I know that it sounds easy to love – but it’s not. Our selfish outlook often prevents us from doing thing purely out of a desire to love. We have within us that innate desire to be recognized, to stand above, to ‘shine’. But as this chapter will teach us, that is not what love looks like.

Love looks like the Son of God, humbling Himself to hang on a Cross for the sins of us all. What if He had decided that was just too embarrassing? What if He had chosen Himself over His love for us. He certainly had the right to do so. But instead He chose love and gave us a shining example of pure love. We won’t achieve that same level of love as we war against our sinful selves, but we simple must intentionally try.

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