“And now I will show you the most excellent way.”
No, that is not a quote from Bill & Ted’s Most Excellent Adventure.
I read that this morning, it is a quote from Paul in the Bible. The context is Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, that has been struggling with disunity, pride and sin (Like many churches and Christians today).
He had been talking about the spiritual gifts that Christians have and the reason we have them, which is to build the church so that the church can be effective in reaching all people groups in the world. Spiritual gifts are given to each Christ follower by the Holy Spirit. They are special abilities that are to be used to minister to the needs of the body of believers. I will get into more on spiritual gifts in a later blog.
Immediately after talking about spiritual gifts Paul talks about the most excellent way. That got my attention because I want to do everything I can with excellence. The excellent way is to do everything with love. Love should be our motivation for everything we do, especially in the church. It does not matter how gifted you are as a speaker, teacher, singer, listener, server, cleaner, leader, organizer etc. if you don’t do it because you love and care about people.
The gifts and abilities that you have were given to you to build up, serve and strengthen fellow believers. That is why it is so critical that the local church shows love to each other. How can we reach a lost world if we do not show love and compassion for each other.
God made us for relationships, and we can only experience life fully when we move toward loving relationships with people. These relationships need to be healthy from an emotional, physical and spiritual stand point. Think about what your motive is to use your gifts. Is it to make yourself look good or spiritual to others. If so, Paul is saying it does no good. Our motive to serve, help and give should be because of love.
Love involves unselfish service to others; to show it gives evidence that you care.
Love is the greatest of all human qualities, and is the greatest attribute of God himself. To love others and not expect anything in return goes against our natural instincts to look out for ourselves. We can only love this way with Gods help. Without God we lose our source of love and cannot love others properly or in a healthy way.
The more we become like Christ, the more love we will show to others. That is the most excellent way.