Let us take that powerful passage from the Apostle Paul about Love and spend the rest of this month considering it, praying about it and letting it work in us for the Glory of God.

Below is a simple interpretation of I Corinthians 13.
It is so profound even the angels of heaven stand in awe of it.

  If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

   Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self.  Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.  Love doesn't strut,  Doesn't have a swelled head,  Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle,   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best,  Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

DAY 31—There is a perfection yet to be known in this age—and yet, a greater perfection will be ours in the age to come.

 

How can this be? If we have perfection now, how can there be more perfection waiting for us in the age to come? Is this something we must allow our hearts to handle? I think so. There is so very much that our minds just simply cannot answer. Only our hearts can reach for that which is eternal. Only our hearts can open up to the perfection that only the Lord Himself can release in us.

Moving toward this, we will take some more of the Word that the Lord gave to Paul and see what it will do for us.

• I Corinthians 13:8-13—...whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake 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 through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity (agápe), these three; but the greatest of these is charity (agápe).

What more can we say? It just all winds up with what it all began with. Love. It’s that eternal Love that God is. It reached for us in His only begotten Son. It entered us and remains with us. It carries us into eternity.

FATHER, what more can I say other than that I love You. I love You. I love You. And I thank you for loving me. Please let Your love invade all my being so that everyone around me will get to know You.

In the Lovely Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

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