Today starts a brief series I am going to do on my reflections on the “Love Chapter” (1 Corinthians 13). This morning started off with a bang. Paul gets right to the point doesn’t he? Imagine you were talking to someone and they said that they could do the following:

• Speak in tongues
• Prophecy
• Understand the mystery of God and are all knowing
• Literally move mountains
• Give all they have to the poor
• Surrender their body as a sacrifice

I’m not sure about you, but that is a pretty strong resume. I would be impressed. I’d drop their name in conversations with others if I knew them. I’d say things like “I know this dude that can literally move mountains” and other people would probably want to meet this person too. Here’s the crazy thing…according to Paul, they have NOTHING.

Zero

Zilch

Nada

All of the other stuff means nothing if they are missing one huge thing….love.

Ouch.

What Paul is saying is that it’s like having a Ferrari with no gas, an iPad with no batteries, a basketball hoop with no basketball and a pool with no water. To do these things and posses them is wonderful but without the most important thing…you basically have nothing. We as people and a Church can do some wonderful things in our communities. But I wonder how often we do them as an act of love. John 13:35 says:

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another”

As we move through this week and continue to look at this Chapter, let’s set our baseline with love being the driver for all we do. On our resume, let’s make it the top “achievement” and “goal and objective”. We’ll look closer at what it means to love as we go forward, but if we set this as our baseline, we can know that our acts will be based on the right thing. It’s all about love.