February 6, 2019

Have you ever had a stop-gap job?

If so, you know it’s the kind of work that you take on for a season, in between jobs, in order to keep other things in life afloat. A stop-gap job is usually something outside of your expertise and training, but it’s doable for a time, because it helps you achieve a greater end. Many times, these jobs aren’t desirable, but, again, they pay the bills.

Now imagine being stopped up in a stop-gap job. Years pass you by, and you grow accustomed to doing the same things iteratively, over and over, ad nauseam. You clock in and clock out, as it were. If there ever was passion in your work, it’s been long gone.

Our work is purposed to employ the gifts, talents, and abilities that God has given us for his glory. But emptiness in our work leaves us lifeless.

Love operates in a similar way. Consider these familiar, hypothetical, and poetical words from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Work without meaning is life-depleting. So is our worship of God, understanding of God’s Word, faith in his covenant promises, and acts of service without love.

Have you ever gone through these very things in life without genuine love? I know I have. And it felt as unfulfilling as clocking in and clocking out of a stop-gap job.

The thing is, apart from Spirit-infused, selfless love toward God and others, our acts of worship, understanding of God, and growth in faith will feel redundant and meaningless (Galatians 5:25). Apart from Christ-minded, sacrificial love, the giving of ourselves for the good of others will feel unfulfilling (Philippians 2:1–2). Giving can be done without love. But graciousness can only be done by the power of love.

So how do we tap into this love?

We need grace—daily grace from God, the author and giver of life. When we dwell upon the person and work of Jesus, we find matchless humility, unmerited grace, and the splendor of real love. This love-based grace of God in the person of Jesus meets us in our times of sadness, tends to us in our moments of weakness, and strengthens us to love as we have first been loved by him.

So rather than just getting by in life, may we continue to tap into the love of God on a daily basis. May we be men and women who are spiritually watered by the grace of God, like the morning dew upon a field of green. And may the grace-filled love of Christ compel us onward.