May 18
We serve a God who can make hailstones pound an attacking army to the ground; He can cause the natural order of day and night to halt in order to rescue His people from an onslaught against them (Joshua 10), but the reality is that He prefers to use ordinary means to effect His purposes. He’s not a ‘showboat.’
One of His favorite means of manifesting His power in the lives of people is that which is extolled in I Corinthians 13. This chapter begins, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.”
In other words, one may possess obvious spiritual gifts yet be a mere clamorous noise—if his gifts are not exercised with love.
I Corinthians 13:13 says in fact, “Now abide these three (gifts): faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Faith can move mountains (Matthew 17:20); hope can encourage the heart—or its lack can make one heartsick (Proverbs 13:12); but love covers a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8). Nowhere is that miracle of love more profoundly expressed than in Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself for our sins.
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