FROM: Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
ABOUT ME: Living the highs and lows of life in the adventurous pursuit of God Himself and of who I'm meant to be as the Bride of Christ.
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Thursday, October 02, 2008,7:18 a.m.
LOVE NEVER ENDS
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I've been reading 1 Corinthians this morning, and in my reading hit chapter 13. One of the most familiar scriptures within the church, I think. It's all about love, and it describes what love truly is. I personally think we should all be digesting this a whole lot more often, since we have such a strong culture around us telling us that "true love" is something quite different. But that's not the point....
The point was that in verses 4 through 7, the passage describes love. Cool. I've decided to write each descriptor out and digest one per day for a bit - since I think it's not getting into me (or coming out of me?) as well as I would like. But then I hit verse 8 and was struck by the translation that I am currently reading. Usually in verse 8 I read, "Love never fails." Today I read, "Love never ends," which had a significant impact on me.
You see, love never does fail - Love being another name for God, and also the concept that really was intended to govern our world and creation. But love never ending - it's eternal. It's forever. It will never end. So many things that we are given or engage in are temporal, even spiritual gifts, like prophecy or tongues. But love is forever. Like worship, love is eternal - it will be around long after our world is ended.
No wonder we are told to focus on the things that are eternal, not the things that are temporal. While some temporal things (like gifts) are given to us as tools, others are merely distractions. And I believe that if we truly learned how to love, many of the distractions or mistakes would have a much smaller impact.
Love never ends - it's ETERNAL.
Worship also never ends - it's ETERNAL (check out what the angels in Isaiah 6 and Revelation are doing).
Let's focus more on these two things - I think everything else that we're asked to do comes out of being people who manifest love and worship.
I've been reading 1 Corinthians this morning, and in my reading hit chapter 13. One of the most familiar scriptures within the church, I think. It's all about love, and it describes what love truly is. I personally think we should all be digesting this a whole lot more often, since we have such a strong culture around us telling us that "true love" is something quite different. But that's not the point....
The point was that in verses 4 through 7, the passage describes love. Cool. I've decided to write each descriptor out and digest one per day for a bit - since I think it's not getting into me (or coming out of me?) as well as I would like. But then I hit verse 8 and was struck by the translation that I am currently reading. Usually in verse 8 I read, "Love never fails." Today I read, "Love never ends," which had a significant impact on me.
You see, love never does fail - Love being another name for God, and also the concept that really was intended to govern our world and creation. But love never ending - it's eternal. It's forever. It will never end. So many things that we are given or engage in are temporal, even spiritual gifts, like prophecy or tongues. But love is forever. Like worship, love is eternal - it will be around long after our world is ended.
No wonder we are told to focus on the things that are eternal, not the things that are temporal. While some temporal things (like gifts) are given to us as tools, others are merely distractions. And I believe that if we truly learned how to love, many of the distractions or mistakes would have a much smaller impact.
Love never ends - it's ETERNAL.
Worship also never ends - it's ETERNAL (check out what the angels in Isaiah 6 and Revelation are doing).
Let's focus more on these two things - I think everything else that we're asked to do comes out of being people who manifest love and worship.
