How many times have you heard this in your lifetime? There have been countless sermons and weddings proclaiming these Words, but how many times have we let it actually sink in on what is being taught here.
In the three verses before this it basically sums up as saying that you can speak in all the tongues of the earth and angels, prophesy and understand all of God's secret plans and possess all knowledge, have faith that can remove any mountain, give every thing you have to the poor and even sacrifice your own body, but if you do NOT possess love.........you have NOTHING.
WOW. Nothing...Really, but I can do all these great and amazing works of God. Yes... Really you have nothing.
Most of us can honestly say "Weeeeeeell, that's not talking about me. I love people. I'm friendly, I go out of the way to help people, I yada yada yada" According to webster you are absolutely correct in that thinking.
How many of us can look at verse 4-7 in the first paragraph above and put a checkmark next to each one of the attributes of love. You can skate by with only a few and live our lives just fine, but to truly experience all aspects of God's love for us we should be able to fulfill the entire definition that the Word of God plainly sets out for us in this overused and under emphasized passage. I easily can say that I have failed with a few of these.
Love is patient, Love is kind. I'm a kind person, I feel like I have fairly good patience. Wait, scratch that thought, I commute in Dallas traffic every day, but I am getting better. If only "that guy" would quit changing lanes so many times. I mean really if we were going to the same place you would only beat me there by maybe 43 seconds. Really Seth, Really.
Love is not irritable. ME IRRITABLE? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'll leave that there for now. HAHA
Here is the one that hits me in the face. Love does not keep records of being wronged. You mean holding grudges is bad. If you know me very well at all you know I'm a pretty happy go lucky guy. I am laid back, easy going and for the most part I am always looking at the positive side of things. I tend to not let things bother me, but i have my triggers. When those triggers go off, I ache with resentment and anger towards people that I feel I have been wronged by. I have at times worked myself into a frenzy for sometimes days just festering with this.
I once had a friend/coworker who lied to me and stole from me. He put my wife and I through so much that I wanted to kill him. Literally. I hadn't planned it that way. I had a gun in my car and I was in his neighborhood. The thought just kind of occurred, "Here's the perfect opportunity since you're here and all-just go over there an maybe scare him a little." That's F-ing crazy for me, even now, to sit here and recollect these events. I sat there in walmart parking lot with my wife waiting on one our other friends to get off work while I contemplated killing a man. It seriously gives me chills right now. I remember talking with her but I was not involved in the conversations. I was having my own in my head. A song came on the radio, and for the life of me I wish I could remember what it was but I can't. It was a David Crowder song and it softened my heart, it literally may have saved a man's life. I don't think I could kill someone, EVER, but that night I was different.
I am much better since that time(I haven't tried to stab anyone) but there are still several small and a couple of big things that I get riled up about. Today, June 27th I have decided to let go. I have compiled a list of names of people that I haven't spoken to in years in some cases that I need to reconcile with and be done with the hurt, the pain,the anguish forever. The list includes some family members, coworkers, an x-girlfriend, and my father, whom I have NEVER spoken to.
This is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done , but as a father myself I can't continue and raise my son into what he needs to be, when I have unreconciled grievances that keep me from showing the love outlined so clearly in 1 Corinthians.
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me 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 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
