In Conclusion – Love

Dear Christian,

Thank you for joining me in this series on love. I’d like to wrap with a final thought that was actually given by one of you all. Which is this: “Patience by itself is not love. Kindness alone does not define love. Perseverance by itself is not love. Love Is all those things – and more. Paul is using words to paint a picture of what love looks like. The picture is not a lot of individual elements but is everything bound together as a whole.”

So while we spent many weeks going through each statement in 1 Corinthians 13, each statement cannot stand on its own. Perfect Godly love is all of these things in one. And that’s what we should all be striving for.

If I speak in the tongues Or languages of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding If I speak in the tongues Or languages of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If 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 do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.⁸Love 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. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹When 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 the ways of childhood behind me. ¹²For now we see only a 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.¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Ultimately, when you bring this passage together, we truly see what God’s love looks like. Isn’t it beautiful? I can only pray that my love will continue to grow and develop in to God’s version of love.

Love,

Ashley