12/22/2023
As the days fade from this last week of Advent - amongst the bustle of last minute shopping, plans to be made and adjusted, meals to be cooked and eaten ... many churches this last Sunday lit the candle reminding us of God's gift of great love.
Not ordinary "I love chocolate" (granted, one could argue that the love of chocolate is NEVER ordinary đ), not the passionate love between lovers, not even love that binds parent and child .âŚ
no, the love I speak of is "The GREAT Love Extraordinaryâ.
For your humble consideration, I commend to you for reading/mediation 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 from contemporary translation found in The Message Bible:
"1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but donât love, Iâm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak Godâs Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, âJump,â and it jumps, but I donât love, Iâm nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I donât love, Iâve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, Iâm bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesnât want what it doesnât have.
Love doesnât strut,
Doesnât have a swelled head,
Doesnât force itself on others,
Isnât always âme first,â
Doesnât fly off the handle,
Doesnât keep score of the sins of others,
Doesnât 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.
8-10 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.
11 When I was an infant at my motherâs breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We donât yet see things clearly. Weâre squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it wonât be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! Weâll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 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."
Simply, Godâs love for His people is never ending, never wanting and is perfect and pure! The great example of God willing to show this Great Love Extraordinary with humanity in the Father sending His only Son to break into human history ⌠for the Son to condescend in the incarnation - âFor you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.â 2 Cor. 8:9 (ESV) and the application of this Great Love Extraordinary by the Spirit âŚ
⌠well friends ⌠we are greatly loved indeed!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all yâall!!! Soli Deo Gloria!
