Tuesday, February 19, 2019

The Greatest Gift

May we forever be clothed in grace and mercy; love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable.

May we diligently seek to view others through the Christ lens of pure, agape love...honoring our Holy, Heavenly Father by abiding in the ultimate expression of His righteousness.

For, in that day when we are fully completed in His likeness, these three will have remained: faith, hope and love. But, the greatest of these is love.

John 13:34
A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another.

Romans 13:8
Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law.

Galatians 5:14
The entire Law is fulfilled in a single decree: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

1 Corinthians 13
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If 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.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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 completeness comes, what is in part 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 the ways of childhood behind me. For 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.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.