Tune My Heart, Week 4
- Stacy Bishop
- Aug 15, 2024
- 3 min read
Happy Sunday, friend. As you prepare for worship this morning, take a moment of quiet to invite God’s presence into your awareness today.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
As Christians, our words of hope and stories of Jesus mean nothing to people if they don’t also get love from us. As worship leaders, I think the same can be true of our songs. If we’re not loving our people well, our songs feel hollow. From another person’s perspective, they may feel like those words couldn’t possibly come from our lips and be true of where our hearts are. Our integrity and authenticity is shown in our actions.
Do we live the words we sing? Do we love like Jesus? It doesn’t matter how well we sing or play or lead or serve if we are not loving well. I wanna be a person that lives out what Paul says a little later in chapter 16 of 1 Corinthians: a person who does everything with love.
I’ll admit, this part can be super hard for me. I’m an introvert. I’m not a people person. But it’s a regular part of my prayer life to ask God to help me love people. To see them like He does. Another thing I like to pray specifically is that God would show me who needs my love and attention as I head into Sunday morning. For a lot of us, greeting every single person at our church is impossible, but we can ask God to show us who we need to focus on and let Him lead our interactions.
If we’re going to put work into preparing ourselves and our hearts for serving the King on Sunday, let’s make sure our actions towards His people match what we’re singing and saying. I don’t want to just be a resounding gong or clanging cymbal. I want to be a voice of hope and freedom for the people in my church. Let’s go be that today!
Let's pray.
God, we are so thankful for Your example of good, perfect, unfailing love. We thank You for Your Word that challenges us to show that love to others—to be hearers and doers of Your Word. Help us to do that today. To show love to the people around us. To see them like You do, with grace and compassion. God, would You send us specifically to love on the people that You know need some extra attention today. Help us to view these situations as divine appointments, not interruptions. As our main calling, above anything else today. Help that love to extend as we sing songs about You, to You and over our people this morning. May our worship be in spirit and in truth, pleasing to You. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
If you'd like a printable version of this week's devo, you can download it here:
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