If I Don't Have Love

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February 21
We can't do a month's concentration on love and not delve into 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, so I thought it would be fun to check it out in The Message translation.

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 have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I do'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.

Lord, You are Love!  Thank You for loving sinful us.  You call us to love our families, our neighbors, the Body of Christ and even our enemies and those who persecute us.  May this verse be engrained upon our hearts and when loving is hard, may we trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to love us through loving others this way!  In Jesus Name, Amen

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