it's all about love

Mark 12

28 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate.

He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked,

     "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"


29 Jesus replied,

        "The most important commandment is this: 'Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD.
        30 And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.'
31 The second is equally important:

        'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

No other commandment is greater than these."



So Jesus boiled it all down to 4 words...

     Love God. Love others.


And here Paul writes an eternally power statement about what the nature of love is...



1 Corinthians 13

1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels,

     but didn't love others,

     I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I had the gift of prophecy,

     and if I understood all of God's secret plans

     and possessed all knowledge,

     and if I had such faith that I could move mountains,

     but didn't love others,

     I would be nothing.

3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body,

     I could boast about it;

but if I didn't love others,

     I would have gained nothing.


4 Love is patient

     and kind.

Love is not jealous

     or boastful

     or proud

     5 or rude.

It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable,

     and it keeps no record of being wronged.

6 It does not rejoice about injustice

     but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7 Love never gives up,

     never loses faith,

     is always hopeful,

     and endures through every circumstance.


8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless.

But love will last forever!

9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete,

     and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!

10 But when the time of perfection comes,

     these partial things will become useless.


11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.

     But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror,

     but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All that I know now is partial and incomplete,

     but then I will know everything completely,

     just as God now knows me completely.


  13 Three things will last forever...

     faith,

     hope,

     and love...

 and the greatest of these is love.