The Ballestero Blog

The Day I Become Nothing…

I may speak in tongues all day long.

I may prophesy until I’m blue in the face.

I may explain every Biblical mystery.

I may have all the knowledge in the world.

I may have all faith and move every mountain.

But If I don’t express love in the process…

Then I have become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

I become absolutely nothing to God, or to His people.

When I talk in Tongues,

When I Give Messages In Tongues,

When I Interpret Messages In Tongues,

When I Preach,

When I Prophecy,

When I Teach,

When I Explain Every Bible Mystery,

When I’m Singing About Jesus,

When I Exhort…

When I do all of these things without the love of God being expressed from my heart, my labor is in vain. I am fruitless and I have become a negative influence to the work of the Lord.

I may prophesy or speak in tongues, but if it’s not done in love, then what the listener hears sounds just like the clanging of brass, or the beating of cymbals. All the audience hears is noise.

What I say and what the audience hears, becomes two different things.

If my personal feelings of bitterness leak through, it destroys what God wants to accomplish.

It’s hard to preach the love of God while shaking my closed fist.

It’s a shame for me to prophecy and my words express my personal prejudices and negative opinions of others rather than God’s Mercy and Love.

It’s a disgrace and sin against God for me to interpret a message in tongues and pronounce judgment on those in the church whom I may dislike while saying, “Thus saith the Lord.”

No matter how much Bible I know, if I am mean-spirited, I am still nothing.

I Must Preach the Word. All of It!

But I must have love, or I am nothing.

I Must Speak In Tongues.

But I must have love, or I am nothing.

I May Have Great Faith.

But I must have love, or I am nothing.

I May Have Complete Biblical Understanding.

But I must have love, or I am nothing.

I May Sing God’s Praises Like A Song Bird.

But I must have love or I am nothing.

1 Cor. 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

 

1 Cor. 13:2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

 

1 Cor. 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

 

1 Cor. 13:4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

 

1 Cor. 13:5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

 

1 Cor. 13:6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

 

1 Cor. 13:7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

 

1 Cor. 13:8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

 

1 Cor. 13:9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

 

1 Cor. 13:10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

 

1 Cor. 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

 

1 Cor. 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

 

1 Cor. 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

 

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

Bottom Line…

If I try to do anything, (in or out of the church) without love, that’s the day I am nothing.