Love is...

Happy Valentine's Day everyone (well there's about 51 minutes left of it!).  Tonight's reflection is simple, it comes right out of Paul's letter to the churches in Corinth.  These early church communities were made up of two groups, the Jewish-Christians and the Gentile-Christians.  The Jewish believers still held on to many of their ideals, following specific rules, doing things in a specific manner.  They'd been taught this way and formed this way their entire lives.  The Gentiles on the other hand had never subscribed to this same understanding of faith.  This tension led these early Christians to quarrel (can you believe it?!)

Paul writes many important things in this letter, but today let's read the beloved passage, 1 Corinthians 13:

The Way of Love

13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.2 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.3-7 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.8-10 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.11 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.12 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!13 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.

Paul was challenging these early believers to ground the building up of this faith in love.  This Scripture challenges us even today.  How are you doing with the things Paul wrote about in verses 3-7?  I know I could use some improvement.  

It's Valentine's Day and for me this day has reminded me again how blessed I am to have the opportunity to do what I do, and to serve where I serve.  I think of the many people I have grown to deeply love at each church and period in my life thus far.  I am especially grateful this day that I have been called by God to serve alongside some very gifted, faithful, kind young adults.  It is a such a blessing to be a small part of their lives as they discern where/what God is calling them to be/do.

Love is patient, love is kind.  As the Beatles once said, "All you need is love." 

The longer I live, the more I realize that this is really the truth.  

As the Wesley House motto says this year, "Love more. Judge less." That's my goal.
Happy Valentine's Day friends, I pray you know you are loved beyond measure by a Great God.