Love

I Corinthians 13 is weighing heavy on my mind and I felt the need to write it out.

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." - To whom do I become that noisy gong or clanging symbol? To God? Or to whomever I'm speaking? Perhaps both? When speaking to someone, I must do it out of love whether it be in the training up of my children, the conversations with my husband or to the stranger on the street. More often than not my motives in speaking are self-centered. Perhaps I just need to shut up sometimes. I am reminded of the constant drip, drip, drip of a nagging wife that Proverbs speaks of or the provoked children of Eph. 6:4.

"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." Nothing, zero, zilch...

"And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." There it is again - nothing. Is this the same as "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build." Or perhaps these are the works that are burned up in the fire - done in vain - wasted.

"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away." A good reminder. This speaks for itself. Bears all things...this is the one that speaks to me today. I have a real tendancy to fall into the martyrdom mentality.

"When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things." It's time to grow up!

"For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known." Ah, the hope! Praise be to God! This is not all there is - "For the love of Christ controls me..."

"But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." Amen!