Friday, August 22, 2008

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE?

1 CORINTIANS 13

I went to the Greek lexicon to help find the definition of love. What I found was interesting, but not quite what I wanted to say. I googled love in English and found nothing relative to what I wanted to say there either. Hebrew, fuggedaboudit didn’t even try.

Love is more important than definitions found in some obscure book of ancient languages. Chapter 13 in the book of first Corinthians shows us what love is.
We sometimes confuse love with lust, but, God’s kind of love is directed outward toward others not inward. Love is utterly unselfish.

Example: when I do something for another person there can be several reasons why I do it. I can do it for personal gain( money or recognition of other people), I can do it quid pro quo (I wash your back you wash mine), or I can do it not because I have to, but, because I want to, without thought of obligation or gain in mind.
Love is also what we are not just how we feel or how we should act.
Verses 4 – 7 say it best, I think, now there’s a definition I can live with.

Paul also talks about maturation when he says when I was a child I talked and thought like a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things. When we I see a poor reflection in the mirror, he means through the weak eyes of an older person, that we shall know through our growth if we have truly learned the meaning of love.

In Corinth, love had become mixed up and was of little meaning, today we are still confused.
Love is the greatest of human qualities; it is an attribute of God himself.

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