Paul says action without love is useless, but faithful love, true love, really does act.

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.  -1 Corinthians 1:1-3

Preaching the gospel in other languages, teaching the Bible, understanding the deep things of God, a faith to move mountains, generosity and even martyrdom, without love, are unprofitable for us.

Love is patient and kind, without envy or boasting or selfishness. But love isn’t passive nor simply an absence of sin. Love rejoices in the truth, bears, believes, hopes all things, and it endures. Prophecies go away, tongues cease, knowledge passes, but, he says, love never ends. Paul says when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. It’s hard to even guess what this will be like, when we love in full, but we know what to do now, how to love in part.

Love isn’t something we sprinkle into our lives as a separate category of action or emotion. Scripture says love is the fulfilling of the law. It is what we are to do. If anything we do is going to matter, glorify our Lord, and bless our neighbor and ourselves, it must be done in love.