Yesterday I officiated a wedding. I have been blessed seeing the couple grow and
mature in the Lord. It was an honor to 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, 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. Amen?