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How
the Body Works
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Equipping
the Saints How the Body Works - Unity in Diversity How the Body Works - A Look at the Gifts How the Body Works - Love is the Best |
God
loves perfectly. We cannot
measure up fully to His Love and Paul describes here in 1 Corinthians
13. We can try, as an act
or the will, to be lovers. The
standard is high. The bar
is raised. Let's love one
another, and see what God will do with the gifts He has so freely given
us. Love
is the best. It is better
than the best of the gifts in which we often take pride.
Love will always continue, because God is love.
Love is a Grace as lasting as all of eternity.
Our present state is a state of childhood.
Our future is that of manhood.
This is the difference between earth and heaven.
What narrow views, what confused whims and ideas of things
children have compared with grown men.
What will we think of our most valued gifts when we get to
heaven? Everything
is dark and confused now, compared to what they will be when we get to
heaven. There will be no
obscurity or error there. The
light of heaven will remove all the clouds and darkness that hide the
face of God from us. The
excellence of love surpasses faith and hope.
Love is to be preferred above all else, because love will
complete and fulfill all else. Hope fastens on to future happiness and waits for that.
In heaven, faith and hope will be swallowed up in actual reality,
sight and enjoyment. In
heaven we will perfectly love God, and one another. Wonder of wonders!
(1 John 4:8-16) This is why love is so enduring. We will then reach what we could not attain on earth. There are things that are partial and temporary. Gifts will end, but love will endure. That is why Love is the Best. Where God is to be seen as He is, face to face, Love reaches its apex. Only there is love perfected. If
I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am
only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a
faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I
give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but
have not love, I gain nothing. Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices
with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always
perseveres. Love
never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where
there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it
will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when
perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked
like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I
became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor
reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. |