Saturday, May 17, 2014

With a Love Like That

I was recently asked to do a friend's wedding. It has been a blessing seeing them grow and mature in the Lord. It is an honor to officiate and participate in their wedding and lives. Paul loved the church, the bride of Christ. As he wrote to the church in Corinth, he did so as a Father loving his child with a great word from God.


There are many wonderful things that we can experience in this world, but three faith, hope, and love come to the top. As I experience life (in other words "as I age") I agree wholeheartedly with Paul's summation of life. 
You don't have to get married to consider these words of love found in 1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, 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 completeness comes, what is in part 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 the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a 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.

Praise God today for His great love offered so freely to us through Jesus.