Convictions Without Love End in Oppression

Jesus made sure we knew that love was nonnegotiable. Over and over he spoke about it. Time and time again he showed it. And he regularly entered into conflict with the religious leaders of the day because their convictions seemed to matter more to them than loving people. As one author put it:

“We are free to hold convictions about multiple issues and conflicts…. We are not free, however to hold those convictions in the absence of love. Jesus knows what history should have taught us: Conviction without love ends in oppression”. - Sean Palmer, Unarmed Empire

Take some time now to think about your most important convictions - the values and ideas that are essential for you, that are worth fighting for, arguing about, and sacrificing for. Now take some time to insert those convictions and those values into this text in place of words like “faith” and “knowledge” and see what the Spirit is saying to you about how to live today.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3