Today’s devotion shows us that love is much more than emotion
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Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
The Pressure I Feel
I can mistake brilliance, speed, creativity, knowledge, and spiritual activity for maturity.
The Grace I Receive
Christ’s love gives my gifts their truest direction and turns ability into service.
Reflection
Paul gives the church a picture that still unsettles us. A person can speak with power, understand mysteries, hold knowledge, exercise faith, give generously, and even suffer greatly. Yet when love is absent, all that brilliance collapses into noise.
That is a hard word for any age that prizes talent. It may be an even harder word for a future shaped by intelligence, speed, technology, creativity, and access to knowledge. We can become impressed by capacity and forget the deeper question: What is this capacity serving?
Love is the highest intelligence because love gives every gift its proper aim. Speech needs love, or words become performance. Knowledge needs love, or insight becomes superiority. Creativity needs love, or beauty becomes self-display. Technology needs love, or tools begin to serve power, profit, and efficiency while people fade from view.
Love is more than a pleasant feeling added after the work is done. Love is the energy that moves holy work toward life. God created the heavens and the earth from the abundance of divine love. Creation began in generosity. Life was meant to move in love toward God, neighbor, and the world God called good.
Disobedience bent that movement inward. Love became curved toward the self. We began using good gifts to protect ourselves, prove ourselves, secure ourselves, and make ourselves visible. Christ enters that bent life and begins turning love back toward its true direction.
That matters for The Formed Future. The future will have room for gifted people, informed people, capable people, and creative people. But the future God intends is shaped by Christlike people, people whose gifts are warmed and guided by love.
We love to create, so we create from the energy love gives us. We love to learn, so we learn in order to serve. We love people, so we use our words, tools, time, attention, and skill for their good.
The question for a formed future is simple and searching: Where is love leading this gift?
Formation Practice
Choose one gift, role, tool, or responsibility you will use today.
Ask three questions before you use it: Who does this serve? Where is love leading me? What motive might bend this toward self-protection, self-display, or control?
Then take one action that lets love give that gift its direction. Write the message with love. Use the tool with love. Make the decision with love. Do the task as service rather than performance.
Prayer of Formation
Lord Jesus,
Fill my gifts with Your love. Teach me to see ability as a trust. Keep my words, knowledge, creativity, and work from becoming noise. Let love become the force that gives direction to what I create, say, learn, and do. Bend my life back toward You and toward the people You ask me to love.
– Amen
Carry This Prayer
Breathe in: Fill my gifts with love…
Breathe out: … let love guide what I create
Formed Future Statement
Love gives my gifts their truest direction
Which line from today’s devotion are you carrying with you? You are welcome to share it in the comments.