I just started reading this book I found in my parents attic called "Secrets of an irresistible woman, smart rules for capturing his heart" by Michelle McKinney Hammond. In this book she talks about "the rules" which I'm sure some of you have read. I started reading it while I was in college, but put it down because I thought it promoted manipulation and lying. But, regardless of that there were some good advice that I'm sure we could all benefit from following. This book though, promotes God's view of how love should be which is stated in 1 cor. 13. The love chapter. It was a good reminder for me to read that again and I wanted to share it with you from the Message Bible. I think we can all benefit from a reminder of "The way of Love..."
1 Cor. 13 - Message
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic
ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
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 don't have love, I'm nothing.
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 for 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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
