I Cor. 12 - Gifts! ... But now I want to lay out a far better way for you ... The Way of Love is found in I Cor 13. "Go after a Life of Love as if your life depended on it---because it does." I Cor 14:1.
"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled."
I Cor 13:13 "But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation:
TRUST steadily in God,
HOPE unswervingly,
LOVE extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love."
What would it look like if I really loved my husband, my children, my world? 66 LL says it beautifully on page 246: I would turn away from holding a spirit of entitlement and deal decisively with my blatant sin. I would serve selflessly, not for recognition. And I would steer clear of every form of blatant or subtle forms of idolatry---so I wonder what that really looks like?
"Only in dark nights will hope burn bright enough to sustain your faith and release your love." Not many Christians I know who are talking about dark nights---they are trying to get out of the dark rather than find Him, find Hope in the darkness...and trust! "Let what you see drive you to the precipice of unbelief." Now that's a different thought for today! HE will speak to those deep places in our hearts this day and HE will anchor you in true hope, real love!
"The glory-loving, self exalting, attention-seeking, whining, pouting, self-pitying me has to die." (John Piper sermon on love)
ReplyDeleteHe says that the only way to love God's way is to die: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:24-25 ESV)
Still reading...sin being exposed.
(And thinking how often I say I "love" someone/something and I don't have a clue!)
FG
I Corinthians13:12"We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!"
ReplyDelete13"But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."
I am looking, but do I see? Master Jesus, open my eyes. Let me see your love in others, and in me.
FG, when I read your comments, I think to myself: There are some "things" that this girl really "gets"---you know a little more than most of the world I see here in Austin how to enter those dark places and trust in midst of confusion.
ReplyDeleteA quote to keep.
ReplyDeleteI am always convicted by the Law of Love from chapter 13.
ReplyDeleteI read the Ten Commandments and I find they are a lot easier to keep than Paul's Law of Love.
I have to die to my own needs and sense of self-entitlement and allow the needs of others to come first.
Isn't that a beautiful definition of "grace?"
This one is probably the one I'm trying most to learn right now:
"Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,"
God's Law is Love.
Pearls, may God surround each one of you with His comfort and joy.