I have recently been struggling and challenged on many items in my daily leading of a church / ministry. I have done my best to approach this struggle / challenge with heart and mindset of, "What is God teaching me?" However, through some of the moments in this venture I have found myself, when it comes to dealing with brothers and sister in Christ, asking the question, "Where is the love?" In this journey I have researched and read many different articles / post from other ministers about love and it's place in the church. Today, God has spoken to me in such a fresh way on this topic that I thought I'd share it with you. One of my favorite authors and pastors is Francis Chan (Crazy Love / Forgotten God fame). He wrote this post and as I read it this morning it's as if God said to me.... "Keep on keeping on and in doing so remember love never fails. Always extend love even if you have to speak hard truths. Do it with a heart of love, not of anger, fear, or law. Thanks Francis for encouraging me today and I hope his words encourage each of you.
As you read, remember, what this world needs to see from Christians is love for each other. Jesus said the two most important commandments are to love God and love others as yourself. I am still trying to master those two. Until I can master those two....I am spinning my wheels on going any deeper with God.
Francis writes:
Knowledge is essential, but it’s not sufficient. It takes knowledge for me to write this. We need to think. We must know the truth.
But knowledge alone is not sufficient for the Christian life. It’s not enough just to have knowledge. That’s why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:2: “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.” Think hard. But know that it’s not enough. Paul says even if he had all knowledge but didn’t love, he would amount to nothing. In other words, you can be brilliant and worthless.
It would be like a great basketball player who never misses a shot but keeps shooting into the opponent’s basket. He may say, “I was five for five today from the three-point line,” but his teammates would respond, “But you’re killing our team! You’re shooting at the wrong basket!” He answers confidently, “But I did not miss.” That is the kind of attitude that Paul is confronting here. You might be brilliant, but you’re killing our team. You’re not building up the brothers; you’re making them feel dumb and wounding their conscience. You’re not stirring them up to love and good deeds. You just keep making them feel inadequate. By your knowledge, this weaker brother is being destroyed!
Your brilliance is worthless if you’re not building up your brother—and even worse if you’re destroying him with your knowledge. So when you look at people, do you love them? Do you think, Let me use my knowledge to build this person up?
I hope this short word from Francis was as much a blessing to you as it was to me. Have a great week.
