Summer Lovin'

Every once in a while it's good to remind ourselves why we do the things we do, or why certain things are important to us. It's why we renew our vows, get baptized again, or sometimes why we sing worship songs. A few months back family groups at Wesley were given the topic of confession, repentence, and forgiveness to inquire with our groups about. Prior to the beginning of discussion I headed off to the prayer chapel. When I prayed about it I received a picture of an orange suspended from a branch.

To me the orange meant that we are to start our days with confession, repentence, and forgiveness. It helps us understand who we are, what God is like, and the joy of salvation. I believe it's true that we are in continual conversion to Christianity. I want to wake up each day and like starting it with a glass of orange juice start it with reorientation. The reorientation is around love, this is where I head into my question of the article.

The season for marriages has already kicked in as we (as a culture) seem to prefer spring and summer weddings. Many will read Paul's description of love from his first letter to the Corinthians, "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous . . .", I read over this whole passage slowly but it was the verses before it that really grabbed me,

And if I give all of my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:3

You can give your body over to martyrdom but it doesn't mean anything if it wasn't generated by love it means nothing, it's not for our salvation. You can give all of your possessions to feed the poor but you can still not have love. To do good works seems to be independent of love. I suppose I always knew this but it really hit me reading that verse. You can do some amazing things but if you have not love it doesn't [profit you].

This brings me to something that one of our readers commented on about wise as serpents and innocent as doves. We need both, if we were not wise we wouldn't get much accomplished but if we weren't innocent we would lose sight of why we were doing it in the first place.