(…it’s for every season, really.)
We were kicking around this quick and fun little thought experiment on the radio show the other day:
What if you get to the proverbial “pearly gates” and you find out that you’ve been right about everything all along! Your entire life! All of your opinions and all of your ideas; every position you’ve ever taken in an argument; every political opinion; every moral judgment—they were all correct!
Every. Single. Thing. You nailed it! Congrats!
“But,” says the great scorekeeper, “There is this one other thing: You didn’t love your enemies.”
Okay, maybe this thought experiment isn’t THAT fun, but still.
Here’s the question: If that happened to me, would God be pleased with this?
Or did I actually miss the point?
Biblically, it’s possible to be very “right” and to be very, very wrong.
Paul says it straight up:
“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”
(I Cor 13:3-7 MSG)
So go ahead and be right about everything. (I certainly am, LOL.)
But there’s a certain danger about being right: We can pat ourselves on the back for it, blinded to the greater reality that transcends earthly politics, kingdoms, or mere transitory “rightness”.
Without love, my rightness is truly, utterly, and deeply wrong.
Brant Hansen
Morning Show Host, STAR 99.1
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How true is this? Stop the comments on social media unless you are sharing your faith. Be humble and kind to all for you never know if you’re entertaining angels unaware.
This is cool post…love stands tall above all.
Recently I have begun to pray that GOD will help me to be RIGHTEOUS WITHOUT BEING SELF-RIGHTEOUS and to be HOLY WITHOUT BEING “HOLIER THAN THOU”! My upbringing & the grace of GOD have helped me throughout my life to AVOID EVIL, to AVOID OCCASIONS OF SIN, & to DO GOOD, for which I am grateful. But the prevailing sin I need to fight & need to learn how to avoid is the inclination toward pride & self-righteousness.
The Pharisees started out with good intentions but their pride & self-righteousness led to a lack of love, a lack of mercy, a lack of compassion, a judgmental spirit & a failure to acknowledge their own sinfulness, led to hypocrisy & led to the disastrous sin of rejecting & condemning our LORD & Savior JESUS CHRIST.
I want to be like JESUS: holy, righteous, loving, merciful & compassionate. I don’t want to be like the Pharisees.