Bankrupt Without Love

"So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love" (1 Corinthians 13:3b MSG).

What does it mean to be bankrupt? One definition relevant to this passage is, “a person who is completely lacking in a particular desirable quality or attribute.”
The writer of 1 Corinthians lists, in order, 15 qualities that love has. These are descriptive and show what true love is like.

Jesus = Love

It’s been said that if you put "Jesus" in every place in this chapter where "love" is mentioned,  you see what Jesus is really like and how love is made personal in each of these characteristics through Him. It makes sense. God is love and Jesus is God, so when you substitute Jesus with love it's a seamless transition. It gets tricky though when we attempt to put our name in the place of love. What happens then? It’s easy for me to replace Jesus for love, but not so easy to put me in that spot. You see in practice, I am often not patient, I sometimes envy, and I have been known to keep a record of wrongs, and on and on it goes.

The Christian Ideal

1 Corinthians 13 is more than just a memorable, quotable poem; it’s the Christian ideal. When Christ will enters our life to a meaningful degree we are no longer bankrupt, but we’re living the ideal of love. It’s not theory, but practice in our dealings we have with others; from the most personal to a stranger. It means we change our minds about people. It means we want the best for them. It means our definition of who is our neighbor is greatly expanded. It means we don’t consider ourselves first. It means we don't judge situations prematurely and we aren't rude because we think we're better than the next guy.

The Ideal Christian

"There is no ideal Christian, but I’ll take one who is kind over one who can move a mountain, any day!"  There's no substitute for love. Love is the greatest. Everything we do for God should be motivated by it. Without it we're bankrupt, but with God's love working in us we lack nothing.

Love's a dirty job...... But someone has to do it.

Love is patient. That’s what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:4. Love is patient. What’s that mean? Patience is the kind of thing that has to be learned by kids when they’re on a long trip in the car with their parents, and that parents have to learn while waiting for their kids to shut up. Patience is waiting for a traffic jam to clear out on the DC Beltway. Patience is waiting for your kid to get in the game when you know they are as good, if not better, than the starters on the team. The list goes on. It always takes time. There is always angst. We want to see results. Impatience is the mark of youth and of the unlearned, the ungodly, and the privileged, who always get their way.

I hate to wait. I’ve been conditioned to hate to wait. I need it now. I want to rip open the package, add the water, throw it in the microwave, take it out and eat it all in one minute or less. No that’s too long! Why add water, just throw it in the microwave!

I get that way in ministry too. Why hasn’t that person changed? What’s wrong with them? Hello it’s in the Bible! That guy should be a pastor by now! Can anybody be on time? Once? Oh I wish the preacher would hurry up and finish, the football game starts in 45 minutes!

To be patient is to be “long suffering.” Could there be a better synonym for patience? Long suffering means it hurts for a long time. It means you don’t see results for a long time. It means you don’t get what you want for a long time. It means that you have to be around people you sometimes don’t like for a long time. It’s long, and it hurts!

Love is patient. Love suffers long. Love does not need immediate results because it is love, and if it did, then it wouldn’t be love. That’s what love is, it’s patient. It’s a dirty job. It means I stay with someone who I don’t love outwardly anymore, with the hope that the outward part will return, but if it doesn’t I stay anyway, because long ago I chose to love. Love is patient, and that means sometimes love equals suffering. It’s something we don’t want to do. It’s like unplugging the toilet. It’s like working in a coal mine. It’s like cleaning a sausage factory. We don’t want that job because it’s dirty and smelly, but someone has to do it, and that someone is us. So let’s man up and do the job we don’t want to do... That’s love.

Jesus came to a bunch of thankless hypocrites and loved them, even though they didn’t, and couldn’t love him back. He knew the job was dirty. He knew it was hard. He knew few would appreciate the difficulty of the task or the sacrifice required, but someone had to do it. He was that someone.

Patience is doing things we don’t want to do and changing things we don’t want to change. It’s a dirty job, but it has to be done to reveal God’s true nature of love. We haven’t always been successful; therefore we have not always loved in situations and relationships where patience was required, where suffering was necessary. Instead we’ve walked away.

Don’t condemn yourself. Be patient. Suffer long and suffer well. Get to know love that’s beyond the superficial emotion people associate with the word. If you do, you’ll do better next time.

A More Excellent Way

In 1st Corinthians 12:27-31 the Apostle Paul lists some of the gifts that are appointed to the church. The first 3 gifts are people; apostles, prophets and teachers, who build, proclaim and teach. The next two, miracles and healings, as well as the last, the gift of tongues, are gifts that can awe people who see them working in the life of the church. Remember how amazed in Acts 2 people were to see unlearned men speak in languages they had never learned? Thousands came to faith because of witnessing it; indeed that was the purpose. Helpers and administrations are people who get involved in the everyday workings of the Body of Christ; the daily grind of ministry. All of the gifts are important, and Paul explains that not all Christians have all the gifts but that our desire should be for the best or more useful gifts.

This is not the end of the argument about the gifts. Paul is setting us up at the end of chapter 12 “And yet I show you a more excellent way,” to make his point in chapter 13.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels….” This opening to Paul’s discourse on love starts with tongues. Paul is speaking hypothetically. So what if you do speak with languages of heavenly beings? Isn’t that awesome? Most people who had that experience today would hire a publisher and a co-author to write a book about it, maybe get it on the New York Times best seller list and have an appearance on Oprah. “But have not love….” The answer the Apostle gives is that these tongues, as amazing as they might be, are worthless and empty without love. Prophecy, understanding mysteries and knowledge and enough faith to move mountains, which would be awesome demonstrations of gifts, are completely meaningless even though they are God given. How about that! “Hey look at my gift! Isn’t it great? God gave it to me.” Yes but if it’s used outside of the context of love you are a nobody.

“And though I bestow all….” Generosity with money, possessions, time and even our physical body is considered by most to be the greatest form of sacrifice, gaining the giver tremendous stature in the eyes of the world, but according to Paul, it profits the giver nothing. There is no reward for any use of all the gifts unless God’s perfect love is the motivation behind it.

This is the crux of Paul’s argument. You are better off as a giftless unknown who loves, than a celebrated individual who demonstrates his great abilities, generosity and miraculous linguistics, who does not. A person who uses the gift of helps as a way to achieve position before God is also someone who gains nothing because this gift also, when used in a way that leaves out the love of God can produce no eternal benefit.

Love is a person, Jesus Christ. 1 John 4:12 says, “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.” Those who practice love are not concerned 1st about gifts; they are concerned about others just as God is. That concern and charity is the proof of their relationship with the God of love, and it’s the only thing in the end that matters. Laying down their life in self-sacrifice is just what they do because of the One they love.

Real Love

Real love by itself is neither a feeling, a passion, an emotion or an attraction. Feelings change, passions cool, attraction fades and emotions have been well described as a Roller coaster ride. Jeremiah 31:3 says, "The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving-kindness I have drawn you." The people who God was speaking about in this passage were some of the most unfaithful people as a group that the World has ever known. Though God revealed His love to Israel over and over again, they repeatedly turned away from Him. Had love been an emotion, a passion, a feeling or an attraction God would have separated himself forever from them. He didn't and that says it all. Real love never fails and nothing can separate the believer from it.