If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than a blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.
This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.
Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.
Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.
We often commence our Christian walk feeling all loved up and open to love. But then the realities of human behaviour sets in. We are angered, betrayed, misconstrued, let down, insulted, maltreated , the list goes on and on. Faced with our own human emotions and weaknesses, how difficult it is to sometimes uphold the high ideals of love and continue to walk in love. Sometimes the truth of what we have endured virtually chokes love out of us. How do we ride above our ego?
Love has no ego! It is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. We must walk in the type of love Jesus walked in, and have His mindset as shown below, as this will kill our selfish nature and release us to love without boundaries.
Philippians 2:1-8 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
When we choose to be nothing, love can freely express itself through us. But we will not lose, because love wins over all, and is greater than all.
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