If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't have love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If 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 have love, I'm nothing.
If I have given 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 of 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,
Love never dies. . .
. . . we 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.
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that great consummation:
Trust steadily in God,
. . . hope unswervingly,
. . . love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is Love.