I Corthians 13

I've been reading another book. one that I've never heard of or read before. but it's well worth the read. it's by a Scottish writer, (so of course I'd like it)! some of the language is archaic, but it's pretty simple to understand. it's called "The Greatest thing in the world and other writings" by Henry Drummond. the greatest thing in the world is love, and he goes through and walks you through the passage of I Corthians 13. at the very end, he presents a challenge, asking "will you take this challenge with me for the next 3 months, and read 1 Corthians 13 with me everyday?" now i use to do this a few years back, not for 3 months at a time, but for a month at a time and it really did change me. it changed my heart and when i found myself in a "moment" where i needed to be thinking about something other than what i was thinking about, the chapter gave me something to think about, and it's a good way to memorize also. so I'm asking you, will YOU join with me reading the "love chapter" for 3 months everyday. not skipping one, maybe in the morning, or at night before you go to bed. a couple of my favorite translations (or versions) one is the J.B. Phillips I'll type it out, and then I'll cut and paste the other from the Message. hope you take a few min to read this:

J.B. Phillips translation:
if i speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, i become no more than 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 i if 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, i 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 shares the joy of those who live by the truth.
love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. love never fails.
for if there are prophecies they will be fulfilled and done with, if there are "tongues" the need for them will disappear, if there is knowledge it will be swallowed up in truth. for our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the complete comes, that is the end of or incomplete.
when i was a little child i talked and felt and thought like a little child. now that i am a man i have finished with childish things.
at present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. the time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! at present all i know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when i shall know it as fully as God has known me!
in this life we have three lasting qualities-faith, hope and love. but the greatest of them is love.






1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
1 Corinthians 13
The Way of Love 1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, Doesn't have a swelled head, Doesn't force itself on others, Isn't always "me first," Doesn't fly off the handle, Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, Doesn't 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.
8-10Love 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.
11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But 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.