"Spirituality is Measured by Love" Many people consider themselves spiritual because they read the Bible or pray or attend church. If they took inventory of their compassion capacity, they would find themselves sorely lacking.  We cannot truly love God while having no kindness or forbearance for the flaws of people.  The Apostle John declared it plainly: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom He has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”  (1 John 4: 20) 1 Corinthians 13, what many call the “Love Chapter,” clearly states that spirituality cannot be divorced from love; all efforts of spirituality and sacrifice are actually canceled out by the lack of love:  “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophesy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing”  (verses 1-3).  The aforementioned deeds, when motivated by love, are honorable.  When spiritual posturing is motivated by a hunger for praise and recognition, it is repugnant to God.  It is “using” people to make oneself look good. What, then, is the love that pleases God?  We must understand that unless we have received the love of God first, we can never be capable of loving people.  We do not have the resources within ourselves to love perfectly.  Again, John addresses the crux of the matter:  “We love Him, because He first loved us”  (1 John 4: 19).  It is only when the love of God has been “shed abroad in our hearts” that we will be able to love the unlovable, a supernatural feat, indeed! Fallen man’s concept of love is self-centered and conditional, based on pride, sexual gratification, and manipulation.  God’s love is unconditional, selfless and always seeks the highest good for the object of His love.  The “Love Chapter” defines the characteristics of godly, agape love beautifully: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own way, is not provoked, thinks no evil (keeps no record of wrongs); does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails…And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love”  (1 Corinthians 4-8, 13).  A Pharisee, who was also a lawyer, tested Jesus, asking Him: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”  Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.  This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and Prophets”  (Matthew 22: 37-40).  Jesus gave us the measuring tool we need to gauge our spirituality:  Do we love people or only ourselves?  Ask God for His forgiveness.  He will wash you clean in the blood of Jesus, and change your stony heart to pliable clay so that He may mold it after His own heart.  Then you will be a truly spiritual person. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  In this is the love of God manifested toward us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another”   (1 John 4: 7-11).