Beloved, Let Us Love One Another

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

My husband Murray was talking with a lady at work the other day about Valentine’s Day. She said it was her favorite holiday, not because of romance, but just because we should love each other.

Murray said, “Yeah, like 1 John 4 7 and 8.” Turns out, she also knew the song from those verses which we used to sing with our kids.

God is love, and 1 Corinthians 13 shows us a great description of what God’s love is.

I have added this chapter to my group of bible passages to memorize. I find as I practice memory verses, the meaning comes through more clearly to me than when I’m just reading.

This chapter is a challenge I want to spend time learning about. I’m not putting down romantic love. That is a great gift from God. But in these verses, there is so much more to consider and work into my daily life.

1 Corinthians 13,

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,

and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind;

love is not jealous or boastful;

it is not arrogant or rude.

Love does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends;

as for prophecies, they will pass away;

as for tongues, they will cease;

as for knowledge, it will pass away.

For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;

but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;

when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.

So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.