FRIDAY May 29, 2026
Without Love We Are Nothing
Let brotherly love continue.
Hebrews 13:1
As we learned in yesterday’s devotion, the world will know we are Christians, not by our preaching, not by our teaching, but by our love. Paul made this very clear in 1 Corinthians 13, where he spent a whole chapter talking about the importance of love. It is a short chapter, but a very powerful chapter. It is right in the middle of Paul’s discussion on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in Chapters 12 and 14. He had been talking to carnal people in the Corinthian church, and he said this in 1 Corinthians 13:1: Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
If you are a Pentecostal, that is perfectly fine––no problem with that. If you are a Baptist, no problem with that, either. But whether you are a Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or from Calvary Chapel, it really does not matter. What matters is our love. It is not about getting up and speaking in tongues or thinking you are more spiritual than others. True spirituality comes when we grow and become rooted and grounded in the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:17).
Seriously, you can speak in tongues, you can interpret tongues, you can have the word of knowledge or the word of wisdom; you can have all 21 gifts of the Holy Spirit, but if you do not have love, you are nothing.
Many years ago, when Calvary Chapel began, the main thing that drew me to Calvary Chapel was the love I felt among the hippies and the love that Pastor Chuck Smith showed during his entire life. I had never met such a loving, gracious person in the whole world as Pastor Chuck Smith. It is just amazing how the love of God just flowed through him, and that is exactly how it ought to be with us. Without love, we are nothing!
We shall not long have love to man if we do not first and chiefly cultivate love to God.
~Charles Spurgeon~
For more from Raul Ries, please visit SomebodyLovesYou.com!
