Love That Makes A Difference in Our World - I Corinthians 13
One of the greatest spiritual texts ever written is I Corinthians 13. Many people use its description of love in their wedding ceremonies. For all of us, it's an amazing reminder of love and its attributes.
I'm going to quote it here. As I do, I want you to think about how you can expand its meaning to include not only your family and your close friends, but people across the planet. Apply this profound sense of love to people not like you, people you disagree with, and people who annoy you. I don't believe these amazing words were written only for wedding days. I believe they were written as a roadmap for living our lives. We could all better at it, couldn't we?
If I speak in the tongues[a] 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.
Tomorrow I will share 20 more profound truths about love.
Ray