The Proof Of Your Love

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.  If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere.  So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love."  (1 Corinthians 13:1-7, The Message)

Without love, all we believe, all we say, all we do, all that we are is nothing...  Showing love is not a conditional or optional action.  It is mandatory.  God commands us to love Him and to love others.  "One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"  Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul all with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"  (Matthew 22:35-39, NIV)

We are commanded to love God first with a passion that cannot be hindered.  Second, we are commanded to love other people as we love ourselves.  This does not mean we choose which people we love.  God asks us to love everyone: people we don't like, people we don't get along with, people that hate us, people that disagree with us, atheists, homosexuals, everyone.  You don't get to choose who you love; love everyone as hard as it may be.  Show all these people God's love and maybe, just maybe, they will come to experience His love and its greatness firsthand.  "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love."  (1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV)

Are you bankrupt?  Please take the time to listen to listen to this song.  Don't skip over it.  You won't be sorry.