If my words are eloquent
laced with angelic rapturous delight,
but my love is ostentatious,
I am nothing but noise to my fellow man
and a disgraceful shame to MY GOD....
If I speak HIS WORD with authority,
if I understand His mysteries
and can make them known with simplicity...
If I have faith that commands a mountain, "BE GONE"
but my love is superficial,
I am rendered a fraud....
If I give everything I own to the hungriest soul
If my body be burned for the lost,
but my love is insincere, what have I gained?
NO matter what words I say, believe,
or do, I'm empty without HIS LOVE!
HIS Love is relentless
it's self-sacrificing
and it's acquainted with contentment.
It never struts it's RIGHTFUL PLACE
HIS head is not enlarged with HIMSELF
HIS LOVE Doesn't force itself on others,
nor insist on it's own way
HIS LOVE says "you go first"
It doesn't fly off the handle,
It overlooks offenses...
HIS LOVE shoots the scorekeeper,
it has no list of remembrance....
HIS LOVE weeps when you weep,
and revels when you rejoice...
IT takes pleasure,
when you bloom....
HIS LOVE endures our sins
HIS LOVE trusts the FATHER always,
it always looks for the best in us...
HIS Love never dies
Inspired words will be some day dissolve,
praying in tongues will end,
understanding will be no more...
My knowledge of truth has limits,
what I know about God
is not fully revealed,
But when the THE FINISHED arrives,
my incompleteness will be done.
When I was an child
I behaved in ignorance
When I grew up
I put my toys away!.
I don't see things as I ought
I don't see things clearly
yet peering through the mist
by faith I wait..
Believing it won't be long before
the (SON) shines the totality of HIS TRUTH!
I then will see clearly
In ALL HIS FULLNESS
I shall know HIM,
WHO already knows me!
Until then,
until that time,
I have three things that I must do...
Have unwavering trust in God,
Have resilient hope ,
and lavish unlimited LOVE
extravagantly everywhere...
And the first and the finest
of the these three is LOVE.
THE KING JAMES VERSION
1 Corinthians 13
1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2And 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, and have not charity, I am nothing.
3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
4Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11When 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.
12For 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.
13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.