The following chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, sums up our goal for life, which is living and becoming LOVE.

It is said that: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8 ESV) (Emphasis added) Scripture also says: “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” (1 John 4:16 ESV) (Emphasis added)

We are to become like Him. Jesus commanded us: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48 KJV) Therefore, like our Heavenly Father, we are to be love, as He is love, which is part of His perfection. Therefore, we are to also be “… PERFECT AS HE IS PERFECT”.

Love fulfills all things we are to do and accomplish in this life. “Love does no wrong to a neighbor (does not sin against others); therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Romans 13:10 ESV) (Emphasis added.)

Chapter 13 in 1 Corinthians is well known and discussed in Christendom. However, most people do not seem to take it seriously, even though they say they do. They may say it is beautiful and we ought do it, but that is the end of it. If more people really lived it, we would live in a far different and better world than we do live in.

Consider This:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (Without love we are just making a lot of meaningless noise.) 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 up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV)

What, then, is Love? This wondrous thing that fulfills the law and is greater than Faith, and Hope and does not sin? Which scripture says I am nothing without?

1 Corinthians says:

“Love is

• Patient and kind;
• Love does not envy or boast;
• It is not arrogant
• Or rude.
• It does not insist on its own way;
• It is not irritable or resentful;
• It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
• 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 we know in part and we prophesy in part, (but when the perfect comes, the partial 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 (when the perfect comes) then (I will see) face to face. Now I know in part; (but when the perfect comes) then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  (Emphasis added.) So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-13 ESV) (Emphasis added.)

— Christa