A Better Way

1Cor. 12:31b NLT . . .  But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.
    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 proud5 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.

I never tire of hearing God's description of Godly love as taught through the Apostle Paul to the church at Corinth and to the Body of Christ across the centuries ever since. Even though we are both  busy this morning, it warrants a few moments of our time to reflect about it's impact upon our lives. It is, as Paul said at the close of chapter 12 "a better way."  It is better than all the gifts and talents that Christian servants have ever exercised. The power to love our enemies, to love those who are harming us-- even while they do so-- and to love the most unlovely is beyond all other powers in the universe. We can make more change in the world through love than with wealth or military might. It is more powerful than all supernatural powers ever applied to or against humanity or imagined in fantasy literature. I don't want to compete with these powerful words so I will stop here and suggest that you simply read verses 1-13 out loud wherever you are just now. Then I suggest you humbly ask God to make that love a characteristic of your daily life. He wants to do it you know.

Your servant in Christ's love

Dan

drdanelliott@gmail.com