A
More Excellent Way!
"Earnestly
desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent
way!" 1 Corinthians 12:31.
"Though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I have become like sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
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. 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.
"Love
suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not
parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does
not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not
rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all
things.
"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. For we know in part and
we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come,
then that which is in part will be done away.
"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. 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.
"And
now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest
of these is love" 1 Corinthians 13.
God is
Love! "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is
of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love!"
1 John 4:7-8.
"In
this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has
sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live
through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one
another. Ibid. 4:9-11.
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