Mark, if you speak with the most eloquent tongue on the face of the earth and have the elocution of an angel, and are absolutely theologically correct, but do not have love, you're only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.  In other words, no matter how great your preaching is, without love it means nothing.  Don't forget the formula that God gives us.  ANYTHING MINUS LOVE EQUALS NOTHING.  Secondly, if you have the gift to foretell the future of your church, and are able to solve all the mysteries that the people bring to you, filled with the knowledge of God and His Word, and even if you have the faith to believe it's true, so that mountains are moved by your preaching, but you lack love, it equals nothing.  If your church responds to your wonderful preaching and they give all the money they have to the poor, and some are even willing to go to the mission field, and give their bodies to be burned for the sake of the gospel, but your church lacks love, you gain nothing.  You and your church should be known by your love, not by great preaching or your sacrifice.  Anything minus love equals nothing.  

 

Love demands that you be patient with one another.  Love demands that you be kind in your preaching, Mark.  And that your church be kind to each other.  The people of your church should not envy what other churches have, and should not boast about how great they are.  Pride is not love.  Your church should not be rude to visitors and should not seek the best seats, but move to the middle of the row.  Your church is not easily angered when people say things about one another, but seeks to love even when wronged.  No one in the church keeps lists about how good you do, Mark, or how bad you are, for love does not keep lists.  The people of your church do not delight in gossip or evildoing, but rejoice in the truth.  You must protect each other, trust each other, hope that Jesus Christ will perfect one another, and always persevere with servant leaders at the helm.  Because love never fails, you will be loving even at the expense of losing members or not keeping your finance for your own purposes, but using them to love others.  What you do will always be done with the love of Jesus Christ.  That is the love that took Him to the cross for us.  And that is the love that puts us on the cross for others.  Anything we do minus love equals nothing.  May God make your church significant because you are a church that loves like Jesus loves.

 

Rev. John Kimmons