Prophecy, Faith and Nothing
As human beings, we have a natural tendency towards pride, which often shows itself in our hearts as a desire to impress others so that they will think highly of us or like us. If this pride is allowed to influence us outwardly, we may act in a way that is designed to show off special skills or abilities, or perhaps, we will do things for others in the hope that our “good deeds” will be rewarded by people’s affection.
If we are very skilled, we may be able to do good or impressive things for the wrong reasons, while concealing the fact that our motives are selfish. We can conceal our selfishness from others, and we can conceal our selfishness from ourselves. God, however, looks upon the heart, and judges accordingly.
Who cares? If we do good, won’t we end up going to Heaven anyway? Let’s take a look at the second verse of I Corinthians 13, and see what we can learn from it:
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. – I Corinthians 13:2 NASV
Paul has been discussing spiritual gifts, and chapter 12 stresses the importance of the church working together as a body. The church at Corinth was made up of people who were like us in many ways, and who apparently were competitive with regard to their spiritual gifts. As we proceed into chapter 13, Paul begins to point out the fact that the gifts themselves are worthless unless they are backed up by the proper motivation.
When we speak of prophecy, and knowledge of mysteries, it is easy to dismiss this verse as applying so someone else, partly because of a common misunderstanding of the word “prophecy”. We often think of prophecy as foretelling the future, but the Greek word used here is defined as the gift of communicating and enforcing revealed truth. Paul is using the superlative here, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t apply to those who bear the spiritual gift of prophecy to a lesser degree.
There are times when God’s Spirit will make something clear to us, sometimes regarding truth that someone else needs to hear. Our carnal and prideful response, if we allow it, will be delighted for the opportunity to put someone in their place, to go to them and tell them that God has shown you something that they need to deal with.
My desire is to make this practical, and so I will give you an example of someone I know who has the gift of prophecy, but also has love. There are times when God will make it clear to her that she needs to speak to someone about their sin. Rather than taking carnal pleasure in this assignment, she struggles, knowing that it will be difficult to be the bearer of such words, but also knowing that silence would be detrimental.
In our personal relationships, we have daily opportunity to share truth with one another, and sometimes the truth we must share is given to us by God’s spirit. When this is the case, let us remember that our gift is “nothing” without love, as expressed in the passage quoted above.
Prophecy without love is nothing, and the same is true of faith. Paul presents the superlative here, just as he did with prophecy. Let’s remember that if the utmost faith is nothing without love, then the same is true of moderate or small amounts of faith.
My illustration here is going to come from my personal experience, which reveals some of my own natural tendency towards human pride. I don’t think that I have the spiritual gift of faith in a greater measure than the average believer, but there have been times when I have looked at a person who was dealing with physical sickness, and have had this thought go through my mind: “Imagine what would happen if I laid hands on this person and prayed over them, and they instantly recovered.” To my shame, this was not motivated by a sense of love for the person, and a desire to relieve their suffering, nor by a desire to glorify God, but rather by a desire to have people look at me, and be impressed with me.
If you can identify with this line of thought, please be willing to admit it to yourself, and confess it to God. If you don’t see it in yourself, please ask God to take a look into your heart and reveal sin if it is there.
To have faith with love means that the motivation for the exercising of our faith consists of a desire for God’s glory, and for the building up of the church. This kind of faith justifies God when we don’t understand His answer to our prayers. Faith with love will never ask, “What’s in it for me?”
Again, God sees the motives of our hearts. Prophecy and faith with love are of great value, but without that love, “I am nothing”. Here is a quote from Barnes’ Notes on the Bible that I found thought-provoking:
I am nothing – All would be of no value. it would not save me. I should still be an unredeemed, unpardoned sinner. I should do good to no one; I should answer none of the great purposes which God has designed; I should not by all this secure my salvation. All would be in vain in regard to the great purpose of my existence. None of these things could be placed before God as a ground of acceptance in the Day of Judgment. Unless I should have love, I should still be lost.
These words strongly bear out the importance of love. Yes, we can fake it. We can go through the motions. The fact is, however, that right action with wrong motivation doesn’t do us any good, doesn’t build up the church, doesn’t glorify God, and doesn’t impress Him either, for that matter.
So, what do we do about it? What can we do about it? If we really do have love in our hearts, great, but if we don’t, how do we correct the problem? The answer lies at the very core of the gospel. We have no power to change our own hearts. The ability is God’s alone. Our only responsibility is this: ask God to search our hearts; be willing to acknowledge what He finds there; ask Him to fill our hearts with the only love that is real. This kind of heart work is God’s specialty, and He always does it right. A warning: heart surgery doesn’t tend to be painless. As He works, let us remember that we asked Him to do it. I can say from personal experience, that the pain is worthwhile.
Both prophecy and faith are good things. They are, after all, spiritual gifts. And so, I’m not writing to discourage the exercise of prophecy and faith. Instead, I’m writing to remind the reader that these external things hold no value if they aren’t backed up by love. May God give us that love.
