7-16-20     THOUGHTS

Sooner or later these morning thoughts had to turn to LOVE and then to 1Cor 13:3-8a.
Listen my loved ones...  Any relationship can be improved by the words below!  
                      A LIFE CAN BE BORN ANEW!
1Cor 13:3-8a     And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4  Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,  5  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  6  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;  7  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  8  Love never fails;
1Cor 13:13  But now faith, hope, love, abide these three;
                               but the greatest of these is love.
1Cor 14:1a        Pursue love,
1Cor 8:3    but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

We have in the words above, a “Behavioral” definition of love.  This is how LOVE BEHAVES!
How many marriage ceremonies have used this passage area only to have two people go out and treat it ceremonially?  Just words!    But Jesus said in John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

1John 4:7-12    Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  8  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  9  By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.  10  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  12  No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

The love above has learned in a very REAL WAY to put away THE SELF!  Love that seeks gain for the self is NO LOVE at all!

My Prayer:
Thank you loving father for love.  You teach us to love, you show us love, we just pray that we will learn love in the truest sense.  Help us to crucify the self Oh God, and live in accordance with the way you have created us.  Help us to see the joy in loving.  Help us to see that love is the key to all other blessings.                               In Jesus name                  Amen