seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
1 Corinthians 12:31 Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.
And yet I will show you the most excellent way.
1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I know a woman who doesn't seem to have a stitch of love in her anywhere. She is so hateful and deceitful, she has been asked to leave a good church. Oh, she seems friendly enough, if you are sick, she'll stay with you. While she's there, she'll go through your things.... "Just looking". Out here, I live in a retirement community. When a body starts to get frail, the fire department hangs a lockbox with a key inside on the front screen. That way if you need help, they can get in. The combination can also be given to a cleaning lady, your favorite niece, or a "kind neighbor" who has a tendency to be "Just looking". Once she gets the combination, she will say, "I can bring you groceries, let me have your car keys". Then she says "I could get here quicker, if I borrowed your mobility scooter".
Then when you pass away, she will hold the door so they can get the gurney out. And then she will go through your things, your jewelry box, the safe she got you to leave open, and she will invite others in to share the bounty. "He said it would be ok, before he passed" she will say. When the family shows up to clean out the apartment, she will be in there with others. She has "assured" her helpers that they are "doing the family a favor" by starting to empty the apartment for them". After all, she says, "He wanted it that way!".
She steals from the dead and dying. She doesn't have a stitch of love anywhere in her.
She is so sweet, and so caring, and so willing!
You can be the kindest person in the world, but if you have no love.... It's just a ploy to get in so they can claim to be "just looking".
Without Love, "Just looking" is the same as "Just casing the joint".
Without Love, it just stealing from the dead.
