real love

Love is a cheapened word these days.

We say we "love" so many things.

We pretend to love people, or individuals, or things.

But for some people, it seems love is a sometime thing...

     we can "fall in love" with someone, while a little later just as easily "fall out of love" with someone.

But it seems to me that the more we talk about love, the less we really know what it is.

Here's what Paul has to say about what love is - this is the standard by which all love should be measured...

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.