:: Cedarcrest Vision (7) ::

Love or Noise

March 29th, 2011

My son, Brody, got a set of drums for Christmas. He loves them! His favorite thing to do is bang the cymbal…over and over. In his little 4-year-old mind, he’s making music. And I’m excited at his enthusiasm. But at some point, beating that metal disc (did I say over and over already?) is just loud noise. And it can get…well, loud and annoying. Since we couldn’t possibly remove this pleasure completely from our beloved son, we decided a better place to put his drums for now is down in the basement where he can “hone his technique.”

Unfortunately, when believers put themselves on display instead of letting Christ’s love characterize them, they sound a lot like my son’s current drumming skills. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says it this way,

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

At Cedarcrest, our mission statement is Loving God and loving people as we grow together in Christ. We want love to drive all that we do. Because if all that we do, however good it is, is not driven by love, then it all means nothing!

Said another way, if people are only hearing our words but are not seeing our love in action, our message means nothing. Unless people believe that we care, they won’t care what we believe.

We want to continue to grow as a church, not be moved to a quieter place in a basement. We want to be defined in all that we do by the first fruit of growth—LOVE.

The second fruit of growth is Obedience. We’ll examine that next!

Entry Filed under: CC Vision, Love