Every day you have an opportunity to change the way the world sees God, just by you being proof to someone who doesn’t know how much God loves them.
That's what the new song, "The Proof of Your Love" (iTunes) from For King &Country, is all about. In the song, Joel Smallbone recites the Message paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:1-7:
"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'm inspired by this song to be more loving. I don’t know about you, but I think we complicate how to be that proof. We think that we have this laundry list of things you have to do, the right things. And then there's this list of things not to do, the wrong things, and we use those lists to go around telling everyone how they can be better.
There's got to be a better way. I heard someone put being the proof of God’s love this way.
Picture a computer screensaver with all these words up there on who you think you and others are supposed to be: pure, not envious, selfless, giving, not boastful, do good, don’t judge people, read your bible and pray every day, don’t steal, don’t lie.
The list just goes on and on, it keeps scrolling, and each word or phrase reminds you of how you’ve failed to meet the expectations that your parents, church, yourself have put on you..So you hit the ESCAPE button, and two words appear on the screen.
Love and Forgiveness.