Christians speak often of love, how it fulfills Scripture, and how it was taught so clearly by our Lord. We extol it. We celebrate unconditional love as the best philosophy of life. But if we do not actually put it into practice, it is just so much religious talk. If we do not truly love, it is mere religious racket, “noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.” Talking it without walking it becomes self-deception. Our critics call it hypocrisy. Jesus not only proclaimed love, He embodied it. That is the path for us.
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And 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 profits me nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NASB)
