All these things we do that come from God are mere manifestations of love. Now we see them as specific things, things that so easily become self-important idols. When the great trumpet sounds and the stained glass is finally shattered, when the mirror image is made manifest and enfleshed, when the sheet music becomes a symphony, when our own dreams are washed away in the great flood of daybreak, then we will see it as it truly is, love.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 comment:
As our common Messiah put it, all the Scriptures: Law, Prophets, Writings, they all boil down to loving God and loving other people.
Man, if we lived by that, if Christians really lived like that, the world's perception of us would change for the better.
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