The measure of love we have to give is only as great as it is first received
"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love [for others growing out of God’s love for me], then I have become only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal [just an annoying distraction]"
What is the measure of love?
Such an old and timeless wondering humans have wrestled with since the beginning, I would imagine.
Maybe a good start is asking the question,
"What makes something measurable in the first place?"
Would it be fair to say that if something is indeed measurable, it would need to have within itself some sort of capacity or ability to contain something that could be measured?
Therefore, if that is actually a somewhat reasonable observation, then to be able to measure something means that thing must be had . . . or you must have that thing.
You must have something in order to measure it and it is only measurable if you have it.
Another way of saying it is to be without something is to lack the ability to measure anything at all.
If you want to measure a piece of wood to build something, you must have the piece of wood to measure it.
If you want to measure your height, you have to be standing there to find it accurately.
If you want to somehow, for whatever reason, measure the air around you, you must at least have air around you to be able to measure it.
Think of your heart like a cup with a God-given capacity and ability to be filled with something measurable.
In order to measure what your heart is filled with, you must be first filled to begin with.
God makes it clear that in all of our ambition to do good things for Him, if we don't have love, we have nothing of true worth.
He also makes it clear that He is love . . . more than just the representation of love but the very living essence of its existence.
He is love.
Wouldn't it be safe to say . . . wouldn't it be truest to say that if we don't have Him, we don't have anything?
When we take Him out of the equation . . . when we take the embodiment and actual living being of love out of what we do, it doesn't matter how "good" or "great" those things are.
It will amount to nothing in the end.
If we don't have Love . . . if we don't have Him, isn't it true like it's written in scripture that we might as well be a "clanging cymbal" . . . or a "noisy distraction"?
If to have love means having God who is love, what does it mean to have God?
What does that look like?
Let's start here.
We must first be filled with Him in order to have any sort of capacity to be able to give love . . . to offer love to others.
The first step is this:
That love must first be received. We must first receive God's love for ourselves, for what can we offer if we do not first have it ourselves?
What can be measured if not first had?
Clearly we can't offer anything if we have nothing to give.
To Have love means we have received love.
And after receiving love and having it, then it is able to be measurable.
This is the measure of love.
"And if I have the gift of prophecy [and speak a new message from God to the people], and understand all mysteries, and [possess] all knowledge; and if I have all [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love [reaching out to others], I am nothing"
Having love is greater than having anything else . . . gifts, talents, abilities, anointing from God's spirit for our calling . . . even faith and hope.
According to scripture, we have nothing if we do not have love.
We are nothing if we don't Have God.
Since God is love and all love is found in Him alone, our measure of love is what we have received from Him.
Again, what can be measured if not first had?
But, we must go to Him to Have it.
I think the temptation here especially for those of us who call ourselves "believers" would be this:
"I am a believer, therefore I am always filled with love"
We have received God's gift of life through Jesus and His spirit in our hearts, but does that now give us immunities to what every human being battle every day?
Wouldn't that be our natural tendency to sin . . . to be self-centered only caring about ourselves . . . and giving into the desires of our flesh regardless of the consequence or many ways it harms ourselves and others?
When Jesus tells us that He is the vine and we are the branches, He later makes it really simple and tells us to "abide" in Him.
That word in the Greek abide translates in one meaning to "staying with."
It is a mistake for us to think that receiving God's love while spending time with Him and hearing from Him once in a day will last us for days or even weeks.
If our natural tendencies is to stray . . . is to head in the direction of not abiding in God . . . not staying close to Him, why would we think yesterday's love is good to last us the week or sadly, the month?
Here is the part that becomes even more sad because we are not just effecting our hearts in this sort of way of living.
We begin to look at others this way as well.
Thoughts like,
"I bent over backwards for my buddy last week so I don't have to this week."
"I took my wife out for dinner last Friday night, so that should be enough 'romance' for at least a few more days."
"I am tired of forgiving this person over and over . . . and enough is enough!"
I could go on because those thoughts are never ending. It isn't pretty the kind of person we start to become after slowly drifting away from our Creator in whom we were created to be filled with Him.
That is the only way we are able to love.
I have even used others who I think are worse off than me as a cop-out. Thoughts like,
"At least I am not doing what that guy over there is doing . . . or at least I am not being as much of a jerk as that other guy is."
I have always thought that we are all on the edge of potentially becoming the worst version of ourselves.
And that is always the direction we head towards without "abiding" in God . . . without "staying" with Him.
When we stay with Him, we give Him the opportunity to fill us up . . . and when we spend time with Him, He imparts Himself onto us.
That is where we have Him . . . and where we have love.
The measure of love isn't something we have to conjure up or create.
Perfect love was offered us at the cross when Jesus took the consequence for our sin which separated us from God.
Now because of what our Savior did for us on the cross and the price He paid for us, we can now freely abide with our Creator every day.
He first loved us so that we could ourselves love.
The kind of love He lavishes on us is without conditions . . . so that is where we learn to love others without putting conditions on them.
His love is forgiving, so when we receive that forgiveness from Him, it enables us to learn how to forgive others.
How merely insignificant our sin and failures and mistakes are compared to the unfathomable way and unimaginable degree to how much God loves us.
Yet sadly we sometimes run from this love.
We often times hide ourselves from this love somehow believing it is our duty to hide God from the darkness or miserable inadequacies we think we have.
Thoughts like,
"I don't deserve this love... so what right do I have to receive it?? How dare I even think I deserve to be happy and content and fulfilled by this amazing love I know God has for me."
That is our natural tendency, right there.
To disqualify ourselves from being loved to an extent we feel we don't have the right to.
We would sometimes rather just reject it and live with scraps of love we get from attending church or doing "good" things for others . . . all the while we are living mostly separate from Love itself.
But it is false humility to use the reasoning that "we don't deserve to be loved like that" to reject something that has no conditions or price to receive.
That is mocking what Jesus did on the cross as He paid the price and met the conditions on our behalf so we would no longer have that reason of "we don't deserve it" on the table any more.
When we were accused of being away from God and living in sin, Jesus stepped in front of us and took the blame for our failures and mistakes . . . and He didn't ask for anything else of us . . . only longing that we would now choose to abide with our Creator once again.
This is what is offered at the table every day for us to feast upon.
There is the grandest of hosts waiting at a table full of the finest gourmet and the heartiest feast.
This is for the most famished soul to devour all they can fit in their mouth . . . to have their fill of walking with God each day.
Let us not be deceived into believing that at any point we no longer "have the right" to feast until our hearts are satisfied.
God made a way because He so desired us to be in constant communion with Him.
The definition of the word "communion" is . . .
The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings.
We want so badly to have a great capacity to love others . . . at least any good man does. Yet, why would we think we are capable on our own to do a better job at loving others than Jesus did on the cross?
Why wound't we go to the truest Measure of Love we know to find it?
And if we already know that source well, why not abide in that Source . . . in that Mighty Vine more than just once in a while?
Why just take what you can carry enough to make you at least a "nice guy?"
Why not be transformed and completely overcome by who God is?
That only happens when we truly abide and stay with God closely in communion with Him . . . through "sharing and exchanging intimate thoughts and feelings."
To have His love is to have everything.
Some rich men who have all they could imagine or desire are unhappily miserable all over the world because they lack the one thing that is truly everything.
Some poor men have given up on everything they ever wanted because they do not have His love.
You don't get His love by attending church or giving money to ministries . . . although it is tempting to think otherwise.
That would be like saying if you go to a wedding every week, you get a spouse and the relationship that comes with that.
And you surely cannot receive His love by being "nice" or being a "good man" or "good enough."
It comes through relationship only . . .
There is no short cuts . . . no ways around it.
We must face this truth if we ever want to make peace with the part of us that constantly wars to stay away from God.
And for some of us, we have run from this for too long.
Maybe you are running right now?
Maybe you could "abide" much more than you are?
Maybe some things have slid into the top priority of your life over God.
Every day the choice is ours.
We can go and do things . . . good things, like giving our time to others and using our talents and gifts to bless others.
But if we do that and yet, neglect God along the way, how then do we think we have anything of real value to offer?
Do we actually believe those things bring us life?
Haven't we learned by now that they like so many other things only leave us empty . . . exhausted . . . and even frustratedly angry.
Who are we actually fooling?
How would we expect ourselves to be patient with others . . slow to anger . . . not holding grudges towards others . . . not becoming so easily offended with others . . . putting them before your own desires and wants . . .
How can we expect to be that person while we do those things if we aren't first filled with God's love, where all of that actually comes from?
If we miss this, we miss it all . . . we miss everything.
I am so tired of seeing people do good things for God and yet they are miserable inside and it comes out towards others in rudeness and neglect.
I am tired of seeing that in myself.
Yet, we think we are actually accomplishing so much because we are only looking at what we are doing rather than the person we are being.
According to the scripture, when we do that, we have accomplished nothing.
The person we become always outweighs the things that we do.
"If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good at all"
Do we think God is actually impressed by our "good deeds?!"
The scripture says that the only thing God is actually impressed by towards us is faith . . . and it also says faith comes by hearing Him speak to us. However He chooses to speak to us and whatever He chooses to say all comes from His heart that longs to have constant relationship with us.
Is it not then safe to say that abiding with Him is all He ever has required of us?
Yet, we think God requires of us to be "good people" and somehow force it out of ourselves through crazy attempts to manipulate our desires and bend our wills to Him.
It just doesn't work that way.
He created us for relationship . . . which means it all happens in relationship.
When Jesus would address and correct issues in others, did He focus on the action or the heart behind it?
The measure of love we have to give is only as great as it is first received.
"Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love"
(Scripture used: 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 and verse 13 AMP)
