If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; 

but if I didn't love others, I would have gained nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:3 NLT

Paul is going hard at what his culture may have valued, and heart motivation. 

How we can hide behind any good work and use it as a shield so that we don't actually love people. 

How our good deeds somehow are a substitute for loving people. From the outside it's difficult to tell if a good deed is an act of love or obligation or trying to earn our way to something. 

In the next few verses he gives us a formula, a recipie, for what love is, one that is a picture of God's heart for us. 

Jesus did give away all the riches of heaven, and did give his body for us, and it was Love. 

My motivation, my heart, it's never going to be perfect. So often my motivations are mixed, but I can allow Paul's words, God's word, to keep encouraging me to keep examining, keep working the heart stuff. 

And to choose to love people.

#corinthians

#itsaheartthing

#lovepeople