RTW 2023

But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

1 Corinthians 12:31b

“Lest the Corinthians should say to the apostle, What is this love you discourse of? Or how shall we know if we have it? The apostle here gives thirteen notes of a charitable person.” – Matthew Poole

This love

“…puts quality into service (1-3), maturity into character (4-7), and eternity into life (8-13).” – Warren Wiersbe

This love is

• Patient: refusing to retaliate with anger, because of human reasoning
• Kind: kind (full of service to others), gentle

This love is not:

• Jealous: to be heated or to boil with envy, hatred, anger:
• Boastful: to act as a braggart, i.e. a “show off” who needs too much attention
• Proud: swelled up, like an egotistical person spuing out arrogant (“puffed-up”) thoughts.
• Rude: act improperly, unseemly, behave unbecomingly (or even dishonorably)

Does not

• Demand its way: seek its own way
• Is not irritable: irritate, provoke, rouse to anger
• Does not keep a record of wrongs: to take into account, to make account of wrongs
• Does not rejoices in injustice: what is contrary to His righteous judgments (what He approves).
• Rejoices in truth: properly, sharing God’s grace with another person, so that both rejoice together

This love

• Never gives up
• Never loses
• Is always hopeful
• Endures through everything

Love is the greatest, without, nothing I say or do for anyone or anything matters. Love should be my motive for everything.

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A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
1 Corinthians 12:7

To help one another, not one-up or compete with one another.

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The Greatest of These is Love