The Opposite of Love

Read: 1 Corinthians 13

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal." 1 Corinthians 13:1

Examine:

Paul had seen some stuff. Ship wrecks, snake bites, beatings, jailbreaks, people raised from the dead, sick healed, deaf received hearing, blind restored to sight, and the risen Lord Jesus had all been witnessed by this man. In writing this letter, Paul could have called the church's attention to many great things, but he said the greatest was love.

Apply

In the book The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, a devil briefs his demon nephew, Wormwood, in a series of letters, on the subtleties and techniques of tempting people. In his writings, the devil says that the objective is not to make people wicked but to make them indifferent. This devil cautions Wormwood that he must keep his target comfortable at all costs. If he should start thinking about anything of importance, encourage him to think about his luncheon plans and not to worry so much because it only leads him to stress about something he can not affect. And then the devil gives this instruction to his nephew: "I, the devil, will always see to it that there are bad people. Your job, my dear Wormwood, is to provide me with people who do not care."

The opposite of love is not hate. It is apathy or indifference. Apathy is becoming a person who does not care enough to care. The list of logical reasons to not care is long and exhaustive. The list of logical reasons to be a person of love is short and sweet... God commands it.

Pray:

I pray and call out to You for many things, but I seldom talk to You about growing my love. Maybe it is my nature as a man. Growing in love can at times be interpreted as asking You to make me soft and weak. Maybe it is my inability to process what I see. If I open my heart to feel for the things that I see going on around me, I quickly become overwhelmed and my overloaded emotions shut my feelings down. Maybe it is that I am just too busy. Life presses forward at a pace that literally overwhelms me. I work ten hour days just to keep up at work and have to throw in an extra six hours just to maintain my personal life. Maybe it is selfishness. My own hurts and neediness have my attention captured and causes me to look upon the world with a blind eye. Perhaps it is a combination of all these things.

I am selfish. I am scared. I am confused. I am lost. I do not know how to love like You call me to love. I ask that You ground me in Your love for me and help my love for You to become the center of all I desire. I pray that my heart reflect Yours. I pray that Your love for the world in which I live be reflected in my thoughts, actions, and expressions. There are many things I desire, but a greater love is the only thing that is truly of value.