Skip to main content

Love Check


            This week everything is all about love.  Yet what most people are seeking on Valentine’s Day is a far cry from true love.
            How does Valentine’s Day love stand up to 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. 2 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. 3 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.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 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. 12 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.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

                God shows us love in His patience, kindness, rejoicing in truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things and enduring all things.  This is only half of love—what it does.

                God also show us what love does not do.  Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It doesn’t insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.  It doesn’t rejoice in wrong doing.

                The love-hype on Valentine’s Day seems like a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal in comparison.  Love is greater than having prophetic powers or understanding all mysteries and possessing all knowledge.  Love is greater than having the faith to tell a mountain to move.  It is even greater than sacrificing your life as a martyr.

                Valentine’s Day is a fun escape through cared, candies and candlelight.  Yet it does not live up to the way God defines love. 

                Take the 1 Corinthians love challenge and become aware of how God’s love trumps all other love in this world.  Perhaps you will come under love’s true spell!

Copyright ©2014.  Deborah R. Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com  All Rights Reserved.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Pilgrimage that Started with Tears

                Who would think I would shed tears deciding to set out on a wonderful journey that I have longed to take for many years?   Before I was ready to fully accept God’s invitation for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I had to journey to a place of agreement between what my soul wanted and what the Lord wanted for me.   For years I have been declining opportunities to travel to Israel—not because I didn’t want to go but because I wanted to go with my husband by my side.   I know that God could have arranged that for me, but instead He asked me to accept that He wanted me to be willing to go and leave everything behind.   When I was asked to make a decision about going on a Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God gave me this verse in answer to my prayer -- Debi, observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are cr...
2 comments
Read more

Why Me?

              When something tragic or unexpected happens, our first question seems to be, Why me?   It’s only human to feel this way and wonder why life has got to be so hard.   God has helped me look at my unwanted circumstances with a different question.   Rather than keep the focus on my pain and ask, Why me?   I focus on Him and wonder, How can You be glorified when everything is going wrong?             Adding one more word to that question makes a huge difference spiritually and opens my soul to find so much more than just my pain.   Another way to look at life’s tragedies is, Why not me ?   Sure, we each have our own amount of personal sorrows. These are the kind of sorrows that have no answers.      We can't explain away death, cancer, rape, bankruptcy and other heartaches.   It is easier to explain...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Purpose of Suffering

    It’s not that I haven’t faced my own degree of personal suffering. It isn’t that I am numb to the vast array of suffering that is taking place all over the world at this very moment in time. It is that I remain confident in the grandeur of God’s goodness even as the reality of the suffering in this world is too much for my heart to bear. I believe that no degree of suffering is ignored by the loving God who created a universe in which suffering was never intended to exist. If I could fully take all the suffering of this world, my heart and soul would never survive. The weight of suffering is too heavy for me. Yet, I know He knows every degree of suffering taking place even in this moment. God alone has the capacity to face the reality of the suffering of His entire creation. Beyond that, I know He is working to end the suffering of this world. So then, you may ask , Why ? My only answer is to tell you to look to God. See His response to suffering. He has tak...
Post a Comment
Read more