ONE OF the most favorite passages in the scriptures is 1st Corinthians 13! It talks about the way of love and how love can be the most superior of gifts, of all the gifts, mentioned in the Bible. Many of the gifts mentioned in chapter 12 are no longer available to us because we have the WORD; the Bible! God doesn’t have to prove to us in those ways because we are without excuse. Jesus has come, and is waiting for us to join Him in His home in heaven! At my age, that is getting closer every day!
“EARNESTLY desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.” 1 Corinthians 12:31 LOVE! Where are we in loving one another? Where are we in loving our spouse? How do our children respond to our loving them always? What about other family and friends? And then there is loving your church family, and those in the world!
GOD’S WORD instructs us that love is the one gift that never loses its power or effect, and we are all called to have this gift. As a matter of fact the scriptures says; “Love never ends!” With love we become closer to being what God has created us to be. “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.!” 1st Corinthians 13:4-7
PAUL defines love in a beautiful way, doesn’t he! I love it when Jim is buying me a card. It can be an anniversary, birthday or a Valentine. I love it because I know he chooses the one I get. It is not just buying a card to him. It has to say what he wants to say! One time he wrote on the bottom of the Valentine; “And it’s true; It really does please me to be with you!” WOW! And we have been married longer than we were alive on our wedding day!
THE INTERESTING thing about love is that we must decide to love. We can’t trust our feelings because they fluctuate. Our brain decides and our heart becomes involved because they both give us notable desires to please God. Because loving is on purpose, we know it doesn’t just happen or come upon us. Although many say they love at first sight and that could be a desire of the heart alone. But when our head gets involved with the heart, we can stop and consider what is best. When you consider that love is the highest form of war-fare; a battle of the mind and emotion, many would not have experienced the complexities of becoming unevenly yoked or not being compatible or becoming involved in a relationship that ends in disaster.
WALKING IN LOVE costs you something. It is the sacrifice of self! That is when your love becomes real. Not light or fat free but the real thing! “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And He said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:36-39
SINCE GOD says that love is the most important thing we can do, we should give it a try! We are to put on love! Revelations says “stay awake and put your clothes on!” Perhaps that is because in Galatian’s it says; “Clothe yourself in love!” If we clothe ourselves in love it can be the answer to all our problems. When we can’t help ourselves, we can help someone else. Perhaps that is why Paul said; “All things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose " Romans 8:28
“BUT I SAY to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the good and the bad and sends rain on the just and the unjust. Matthew 5:44-45 Forget about yourself and love when there is nothing in it for you! Rewards are nice but they perish. God’s love is everlasting! Praise God for His loving us so that we can love! Jane Ann Crenshaw 2/12/16
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