Love Makes the World Go Round

February 3, 2019 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Fourth Sunday of Epiphany Year C Children’s Sermon: Materials Needed: Football Heart-shaped candy box or piece of construction paper Card stock printed with scripture reference and verses Heart-shaped candy (optional) Telling The Story: What’s this? (Show the football and let the children answer.) It’s a football, and it’s used to play a game called football. What’s this? (Show the heart.) It’s a heart. The heart beating inside your body isn’t really shaped like this, but we call this a heart shape, and it’s often used to remind us of love. Every winter, usually late in January or very early in February there’s a very famous football game played on television. This year it was on (date). Does anyone know what it’s called? (Let the children answer.) It’s called the Super Bowl, and the Super Bowl is all about football. Coming up is a holiday that’s all about love. It’s on February 14. Can anyone tell me what that day is? (Let the children answer.) That’s right! It’s Valentine’s Day, and Valentine’s Day is all about love. The Super Bowl is about football, and Valentine’s Day is about love. Football ... and love. Can football teach us anything about how God wants us to love each other? What if we talk about how football and love are different? When you play football, there are two teams. If you look at the scoreboard, the team names might be listed, or maybe the scoreboard says, “Home” and “Visitor.” Either way, there are two teams and each team is divided into two squads: The offense and the defense. The offense tries to score points and the defense tries to stop the offense of the other team. In love, we work together. Whether we’re talking about the love you feel for a friend, the love you feel for someone in your family, or a boyfriend and girlfriend kind of love, there is only one team. When you love someone you work for each other, not against each other. God wants us to work together. When people play football, they’re always trying to knock other people down. Two players run into each other, and knock or pull each other to the ground. It’s called tackling, and it is part of the game. But when you love someone, you try to build that person up. How do you build other people up? You help them. You do nice things for them and encourage them. So football and love are opposites in that sense. In football, you knock people down. In love, you build them up. God wants us to build each other up. There’s something else different about football and love. In football, there are a lot of rules! There are rules about how long you can hold the ball, who you can throw it to, when you can move and when you can’t, who you can tackle and who you can’t, what you can do if you do have the ball, and what you can do if you don’t. It’s very complicated. The rulebook is thick, too! Love, on the other hand, doesn’t have big set of rules. God asks us to love him first and then to love the people around us the way we love ourselves. That’s a lot easier to remember, and we don’t need a referee to help us because we’ve got God. There are many complicated rules in football, but only two, simple things God want us to remember about love: Love God first and love our neighbors as ourselves. There’s something else. Football is played with a timer, and you know what? The referee is always stopping the timer. In fact, it seems like a football game is only played for five or ten seconds at a time, and then someone breaks one of those complicated rules we just talked about, and the referee stops the game and the timer. Love isn’t like that. There’s no time limit, and you don’t stop and start love again and again. When you love someone, you love that person all the time, the way God loves us. Even if the person makes a mistake, you love that person anyway, because God wants us to love all the time. The differences between love and football aren’t just sentiments made up by greeting card companies. They’re found in the Bible! Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, wrote about love in a very famous set of verses that you’ve probably heard read at a wedding. (Show the card stock with the printed scripture reference and verses.) In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, Paul wrote: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Do you know what these verses mean? They’re talking about the biggest difference between football and love. In football, the object of the game is to get the most points. To win the game, your team needs the biggest score. But in love, no one is trying to win. According to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, love doesn’t keep score. God doesn’t want us to keep score with the people that we love, and most importantly, God doesn’t keep score with us. If you love God and you are trying to do what he wants you to do, he’ll forgive and forget your sins and love you with all his heart. That’s what God wants us to do with the people we love, too. Prayer: Dear Lord, Thank you for this beautiful day, and thank you for loving us so much and for giving us the Bible to help us learn what you want us to do. Please help us to be patient and kind with the people around us, and help us to remember not to “keep score.” In Jesus’ name. Amen. Optional: Give children heart-shaped pieces of candy. 31 Use your ambition to try to get the greater gifts. And I’m going to show you an even better way. Love: the universal spiritual gift 13 If I speak in tongues of human beings and of angels but I don’t have love, I’m a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and everything else, and if I have such complete faith that I can move mountains but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. 3 If I give away everything that I have and hand over my own body to feel good about what I’ve done but I don’t have love, I receive no benefit whatsoever. 4 Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, 5 it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, 6 it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. 7 Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will be brought to an end. As for tongues, they will stop. As for knowledge, it will be brought to an end. 9 We know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, what is partial will be brought to an end. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, I’ve put an end to childish things. 12 Now we see a reflection in a mirror; then we will see face-to-face. Now I know partially, but then I will know completely in the same way that I have been completely known. 13 Now faith, hope, and love remain—these three things—and the greatest of these is love. Footnotes: a. 1 Corinthians 12:10 Or ecstatic speech or languages could be used for tongues or tonguethroughout chaps 12–14. Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible I am still unpacking. This week I have been unpacking the what nots of my grandmother, my mother and my own. I was excited to find this one that I got in Greece. They are a popular figurine of the three sisters – Faith, Hope and Love. These are such important virtues, that always come together. So in Greek culture they call them the three sisters. There are actually two versions of the three sisters. This is the common picture – but the sisters don’t have any clothes on. So there is also a Christian version of the sisters, where they are all wearing dresses. Paul speaks of these three sisters in his verses in 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has been speaking to the Corinthians about what it means to be a Christian congregation. He has been talking about the importance of unity and mission. He has been explaining that in order to fulfill the mission of Christ, that each congregation is given a series of spiritual gifts. Gifts are given to the group, not to individuals. He ends his discussion by saying that using our gifts are important, but that there are three gifts that we can’t live without – faith, hope and love. And the greatest of the spiritual gifts is love. As we enter into the month of February, this is a perfect lesson for us. February is the month of looking at our hearts and thinking about the true meaning of love. 1 Corinthians 13 is actually one of the most popular bible lessons in the world. Whenever, I do wedding counseling and the couple is choosing a bible verse, I tell them not to choose this one. Because this is the most popular lesson of weddings. As we approach Valentine’s Day – I thought it was an important verse to preach about. To keep in minds however, that Paul is not talking about the love between two people in this verse. Paul is talking about a deeper love – the love that creates all other types of love that we know – God’s love. God’s love is the most powerful force in the world. As a matter of fact, Paul is not talking about the way that we treat people that we like. Paul is reminding us of what keeps us together with people that we may not even know. If you look around the room, all of us have our place in the sanctuary. More than likely, we have chose our place to sit based on how we feel about the people around us. Who is the person next to you? And why are you sitting next to that person? Even if you are not related to that person, you still have a relationship with them. You sit with them because by now you have some affinity with them. But what about the person across the room? Or 2 rows ahead of you? – Paul reminds us that we are all the body of Christ. Paul reminds us that we may not all like one another, we may not even know everyone. But that the love of Christ extends to us all. – love is patient, kind, forgiving, understanding, beyond how we feel about one another. When we don’t want to be understanding, we still love one another. Not because we like one another, but because God loves us all. Human love fails, but God’s love prevails. If it wasn’t for God’s love, we could not exist as a congregation of people. Faith, hope and love is what holds us together – the greatest of those virtues is love. Faith is our loyalty to the mission of God. Hope is our trust in the word of God and love is our ability to stick together. There are times when we disagree, when we head in a different direction. But it is love that brings it all together, and keeps us going in spite of our differences. I have had a lot of chances to preach on this verse. It is a wonderful poem of having a faith, hope and love that stands the test of time. But this year, I realized another important message on the more excellent way of love. Paul says that today – things are not clear and nothing makes sense. I did not know that Corinth was famous for its mirrors. But they were not the mirrors that we have today. A mirror did not show a clear image until the 13th century. In those days a mirror was well polished metal. You couldn’t see anything clearly. It was a very dim image. A lot like life is – confusing and unclear. There are a lot of times when we don’t know how things will turn out – or what will happen. When we have faith, hope and love – faith hope and love lead to God. And whatever happens, God wins. That is the greatest gift of all – the love of God that sustains us through all things and all relationships. One pastor noted that he was with a lot of people in their last moments in life. In the end, as they reflected on their life, their conversations were not about what they had accomplished, or how much money they had, or what they owned. The last conversation was always about how much they were loved and how much love they had received from others. Faith, hope and the greatest gift of all is love. A more excellent way of living. I want to end with a version of 1 Corinthians 13 – just for what it means to be the people of Love.. This paraphrase of Pauls word – demonstrates who we are to be as the church. Paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 What if I could stand up here and say the most wonderful things, and sound impressive and answer everyone's questions, but I didn't love anyone - what would be the point? What if we were the most incredible church where every pew was filled the preaching was always inspirational - we had a choir that always sang perfectly and served the best coffee in town, but no one felt love - what would be the point? And if as a community we teach our children lots of information and knowledge and they can recite the books of the Bible and know all the right answers but they don't know how to love, we've failed them. If we focus on some and say 'he/she was a saint' and welcome newcomers, and collect money for the Mission and Service Fund, and we pray every week for the poor of the world and yet we don't feed the hungry and reach out to the poor of our communities around us, and don't care for the sick and the lost in our community, where is the honesty in that? If we don't love what's the point? Love is kindness in action, offered simply and humbly. Love is not meant to make me look good, score brownie points with God, or draw attention to ourselves. Love is co-operative; there are all kinds of ways of doing good and God is happy to use every way there is. Love only cares that what's needed is done. Love has the best interests of the other in mind. Sometimes we grow weary and give up - we can't think of what else can be done. But God never gives up - God's love continues, and new possibilities are always appearing. What we know now is never the whole picture. What we do now is never the whole story. In some ways we're like children: we do what we can and what we know to this point. But there's still more for us to learn, to grow into, to accept. Some day we'll look back on where we are now, and wonder how we could ever have wondered and doubted and refused to accept what was happening. In some ways, it's like looking in an imperfect mirror. There's a reflection there, but it's not quite right, not totally true. We are the body of Christ, the image of God - but not perfectly, not completely, not totally truly ... not yet. The day will come when we will see. The day will come when we will know. Until then, we live in faith, trusting God's love. Until then, we live in hope, hoping for God's love. Until then, we live in love, showing God's love as best we can. because love is the point of it all. (adapted from a Loaves and Fishes resource sheet, Wood Lake Books, 1998 by Rev. Brian Donst, United Church, Winona, ONT) Let that be our prayer for the day - Amen.

Love is the Key

January 31, 2016 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Year C Love is the Key When I pastor in Aurora, there was this older couple who always sat in the first row, they had a fairly young daughter when I started, she was about 7th grade. I was there long enough for this young girl to graduate high school and go off to college. I remember her coming to me when I was about to leave, and she told me that I had come along way in my preaching. She said that I laughed at you so hard when you first came. It was July and you were preaching about being thankful. I could not understand why you would be preaching about being thankful, when it was not even thanksgiving. She meant that to make fun of me, but I thought the she just did not understand what it really meant to be a Christian. Because if you are a Christian, then everday is thanksgiving, even a day in July. Because there is not a day to goes by that we should not be thankful. Well, unfortunately I find myself in that predicament again. The scripture for today is the love chapter in 1 Corinthians, but Valentine’s Day is still two weeks away. Well the good news is that God’s love is so wide, and so deep that I could preach a sermon on love every Sunday, and still not say enough. Someone said – love is not God, but God is always love. That is a good starting point for my sermon this morning. What is God’s love, or what is the difference between our love and God’s love. Whenever I am doing premarital counseling, I always tell couples, do not pick this bible verse to be read at your wedding. Because 80 percent of the weddings that you will attend in your lifetime, this 1 Corinthians chapter 13 will be read. You will hear more wedding sermons preached on this chapter then you ever want to hear. And the funny thing is, that is not really Paul’s intention in writing this chapter. We have heard that there are three types of love – eros, philio, and agape. There is personal love, brotherly love and love for all of humankind. But Paul is actually talking about a 4th type of love – God’s love. And Paul is not writing these words to two people in a relationship, who are happy together. Paul is writing these words to a congregation in turmoil. He is telling people that don’t want to be bothered with one another, to remember God’s love. Human Love Falls Short I was preaching in the Midwest one day, when a woman came to me with a little girl at her side. This woman showed by the cast on her arm and some scars on the side of her face that she had been in the hospital. She said, "I was in the hospital because of a very serious fire. There were burns over two-thirds of my body. My husband walked into the hospital room, took one look at me, and said, 'You're not the woman I married.' " He left her to marry someone younger and more beautiful. Human love says, "As long as you stimulate me, as long as I can be proud of you, as long as you're beautiful, I can love you. If you change, my love for you changes." Erwin Lutzer, "Learning to Love," Preaching Today, Tape No. 99. The point is that human love always has its limitations, and God’s love is eternal, all encompassing, and able to withstand all situations. And sometimes in a congregation, we can reach our limits, we can get tired of people’s stuff. But we have to be reminded not of our feelings for one another, but our mission and determination. I would be willing to bet that if you look at the person that you are sitting next to right now. You have some type of relationship with them, some type of affinity. You sit next to that person every Sunday. So by now you have learned to like that person. It doesn’t take a lot of encouragement to get along with that person. But what about the person across the room? Or in the next pew? Paul is encouraging us to learn to love those who we don’t have a relationship with, those who we don’t understand, those we don’t want to be bothered with. But who are still members of your church. You love them because God loves them and not because you don’t. The Dalai Lama challenged us in a class – to think about our mother and all of the wonderful things that she has done for us. There is no other person in the world who has loved us more than our mother. Now hold onto all of the good feelings that you have about your mother. If you have a picture of your mother in your minds eye, all of that love automatically comes into focus. – but instead of thinking of your mother, think of someone that your are upset with, someone that you don’t like to be around. Someone that gives you the creeps every time that they open their mouth. – for me that person would be Donald Trump. But the Dalai Lama’s challenge was that instead of feeling to anger and resentment that you normally feel around that person, to intentionally replace it with the love that you have for your mother. To learn to give that person the same love that you would give to your mother. That is not an easy thing for us humans to do. And it certainly does not come natural. Paul’s point is that when we learn to do that effectively that we are expressing that 4th kind of love. It is not romantic, it is not brotherly, it is not even agape. It is God’s love. You should love everybody in the same way that you love your mother. Not because they deserve it. But because you love God and God loves them. Love is not God, but God is always love. In Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, Rosalee Futch (Kate Bosworth) is a small-town, West Virginia girl who enters a contest and wins a date with movie star Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel). After their date in Hollywood, Rosalee flies back home to resume her life. Her date with Tad, however, causes him to reflect upon who he has become. He decides he needs to change who he is and flies to West Virginia, hoping Rosalee's small-town values will rub off on him. Meanwhile, Rosalee is unaware that her best friend and boss at the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store, Pete, is secretly in love with her. As the romance between Rosalee and Tad blossoms, Pete suffers in silence. Angelica, the local bartender, eventually convinces him to talk about what is bothering him. Angelica says, "You know, as a bartender, you do learn to kind of recognize those customers who need to talk." "Angelica, I'm fine, but, uh, could I have like six more of these?" Pete says, indicating his drink. "No, Pete, you really need to talk." Pete replies, "Okay. Um, I think that our friend Rosie might be falling in love with Tad Hamilton." "Yeah…didn't have to be a bartender to see that one coming." Pete says, "Right, but the problem with that is that I'm in love with Rosie." "You know, I always thought that maybe you were. So how much do you love her? Is it love, is it big love, or is it great love?" "Like, what do you mean?" Angelica answers, "Well, love, you get over in two months. Big love…two years. Great love…great love changes your life." Elapsed time: The scene begins at 01:09:39 and lasts 1 minute and 30 seconds. Content: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, some drug references, and language. Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (DreamWorks SKG, 2004), written by Victor Levin, directed by Robert Luketic; submitted by Rod Reed, Fresno, California Whenever we are talking about human love, there is always some doubt in our mind as to whether what we feel is really love. We are always wondering if it love, big love or great love. One of the reasons that this scripture is preached at so many weddings is to remind us that we have to put God in the center of all of our relationships in order to have a great love. But Paul breaks it down for us even more. He tells us what love is and what love is not. He tells us what loves does and what it does not. Paul gives 15 different characteristics of love. Love is patient. And the word here means to be patient with the person, even when you are not patient with the circumstances. No matter how bad the situation is, still be patient and understanding with the persons involved. Love is kind – which means be sweet to all people, not just the ones you are sitting next to. Love knows no envy. There are two kinds of jealousy – one is where you want what others have, and the other is when you don’t want that person to have anything, and you will fight to take everything that person has away from them. Love overcomes both of these. Love never brags, it never speaks of its own importance, love is always graceful, love does not insist on its rights,it does not fly into a tamtrum, it does not remember the wrongs of others, it finds no pleasure in wrongdoing, it rejoices in the truth, it trust it endures, it always hopes. The only thing in life that will live up to all 15 of those things all of the time is God. And it is only the love of God that helps us to love our fellow church members, our fellow family members, our fellow people of the world all of the time in all circumstances. These are my friends that I got in Greece, faith, hope, charity. These are the greek girls, you can also get them in the Christian version where they are fully clothed. These figures are popular in Greece, because Paul was not the first person to put these three qualities together. Plato uses them to say that all of humanity is dependent on these three virtues to keep us together. Paul just takes the concept a few steps further. You can’t separate the three sisters, faith, hope and love. One theologian says that faith is the door that we have to walk through in order to understand God’s love. Hope is the reward of faith. Hope expects what hope believes and faith believes what hope expects. You cant have one without the other. In the middle of the two is always love. If you don’t know how to love, then it is a forgone conclusion that you wont have faith in anything or hope in things changing. Love is the key to life. In the end that is all that we really want – is to experience love. To know that we are accepted completely for who we are. To have God’s love in our lives. Love is not God, but God is always love. Faith, hope and love travel together, but the greatest of them is love. Paul is reminding us that is it good to have love in all areas of your life. You should love the person that you are married to, you should love the people in your household, you should love the people that you work with, that you should love the person that you are sitting next to. But if you can show love in all of those places, you should also love the people that you see at church, love the people that you sing in the choir with, love the people at church council, love the person that always disagrees with you, love the person who is struggling and asking questions, love the people who travel this spiritual journey with you. Sometimes the only thing that is holding us together as a church is God’s love. We are united by faith, by hope, but the greatest of these is love. God’s love, not ours. Love is not God, But God is love. Amen. The film 127 Hours tells the true story of then 27-year-old Aron Ralston. In 2003, while hiking in Blue John Canyon in Utah, Ralston was trapped by a chockstone that pinned his right arm to one wall of a crevice. After surviving for five days on 500 ml of water and exhausting all other options, he fashioned a homemade tourniquet and with a blunt pocket tool cut off his arm and stumbled out of the canyon to find help. At one level, this film sounds like just another gory action movie, but more deeply, this film explores what it means to love. At the beginning of the film, Aron barrels into the canyon, music blaring in his headphones. He arrives there after ignoring phone calls from his mom and sister and brushing aside his boss' queries about where he was headed. Ralston acts like a completely self-centered loner, incessantly snapping pictures of himself and flirting with girls he meets on the trail. Clearly, Ralston doesn't need or want anyone else in his life. But by the end of the film, he's motivated to fight for his life by a memory of his ex-girlfriend looking at him with a mixture of pain and pity and saying, "You're going to be so lonely, Aron." At the time, he wanted the loneliness, savoring freedom from entanglements. But remembering her love and thinking about the possibility of starting a family provides the motivation to pull out his pocket knife. He realizes he's made a terrible mistake by isolating himself, and he wants another chance to live differently. So he cuts off his arm and escapes to freedom. Near the end of the film, when Aron has made it out of the canyon and is on the trail with his severed arm, he sees some other hikers a little way ahead. Barely audible at first he says, "Help me." Then, bellowing hoarsely, he cries out, "Please Help Me!" The hikers hear him, and turn around puzzled. Then, seeing what's happened, they come running. It's when Aron asks for help that the film reaches its climax. "Please help me" is itself a form of "I love you." The two cries belong together. Ralston's vulnerability, his plea for rescue, is what leads him back into the arms of his family, back into relationships with people, back to love. Adapted from Wesley Hill, "Love Is a Cry for Help," C

Valentine's Day Hope Talk

Valentines Hope Talk 1 Corinthians 13 Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day – Valentine’s Day has come a long way. Today it is one of the most money making days for retailers, so you know you are going to here a lot about it. The powers that be, want people to buy candy and cards. But it is interesting that the media talks a lot about love, but unfortunately they don’t offer any instructions on what love really is, or how to truly love others. As a child one of my favorite parts of valentines day – were the valentines. I would love buying my little box of valentines and to decide which ones to give to classmates. This is not an original with me. I heard it in a sermon over twenty years ago given by Bro. Paul Holderfield. Johnny was not a very popular boy at school, in fact you might say he wasn’t liked at all. It was not anything in particular, well you know the type (maybe even been one of these yourself). Johnny loved Valentines Day and every year looked forward to it. He would start early and make his list, look for special valentines for each schoolmate on his list. But, it sems that all of this effort went astray because he never received a valentine from anyone at school. Another valentines day rolled around and he had his special cards ready to go that day. Off he went to school protecting his cards so they would be spotless upon his arrival at school. As he boarded the bus and was out of sight of his mother, tears filled her eyes and soon were cascading off her cheeks. Oh, how she dreaded his coming in that evening, knowing he probably would not get a single card in return. She prayed diligently for him all day and soon the bus rounded the curve and came to a stop in front of their house. Johnny came out of the bus and she heard him say as he came up the path, "not a one". Her heart broke. then again she heard him say, "not a single one." She didn’t know what she was going to say to him. as he approached her his expression changed to a great big smile and he shouted these words, "not a one, I didn’t forget a valentine for a single one." Love is not about what we receive, but what we give Of course as parents, we give a lot. We give a lot and don’t expect anything in return. A lot of times we end up giving all that we have inside for our kids. And we don’t get a lot in return, we don’t get any acknowledgement for what we have done. And sometimes giving ourselves can leave us feeling empty, and sad. And it is days like valentines Day and all of this talk about love that can remind us of our emptiness. That’s just it, we have to change our perspective, and we have to take some time to think about what love is. Love is not a commodity that we can go to the store and buy and sell. It is also not a feeling that we give and expect to receive. Love is who we are as a person. The bible says a lot about love. The message of the bible is that God is love. The spirit of love is essential to who we are and essential to life. Someone said that they gave a valentine card which said _ I love you more than Kanye – loves Kanye. The message of the bible is that God loves you more than than. Or if the word God makes you uncomfortable – think of it as the spirit of life – is the spirit of love. And the message of life is that sometimes we have to get in touch with just how much we are loved. Sometimes we have to not spend so much time looking out – but we have to take the time to look in. We have to look at our capacity to give, not what we get from others. The most famous verses of love are in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV) 13 If I speak in the tongues[a] 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 prophecyand 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,[b] 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. Footnotes: a. 1 Corinthians 13:1 Or languages b. 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts body to the flames The good news is that the spirit of life has done all of that for us, in order to help us to be love for others. We have to be careful to give out of our fullness in our spirit and not out of what we lack. We have to give out of what we have in our spirit, and not out of what we are hoping for. LOVE IN THE DRIVEWAY One young boy said, "Love is when his daddy reads me a bedtime story. True love is when he doesn’t skip any pages." I remember when my son Shawn was in high school. Several times he parked his truck in the middle of the driveway. That got my dander up, because I could not get in or out of the garage. One time I happened to come out of the door just as he had parked there and was climbing out of his truck. I gave him the old ’what for’ father-son lecture. Then I ordered him to move his truck out on the street. I was fuming, and as I turned to walk into the house, he followed me instead of moving his truck. I turned to continue my tirade, but he quickly asked me where the end of the lecture went. I asked him what he was talking about, and he reminded me that the end of the lecture was when I said, "I love you, Son, so let’s try to correct this, okay?" That was the end of my anger, and the end of his blocking the driveway. This was also a sign of the love shared between a father and a son. (From a sermon by Bruce Ball, "AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE" 2/15/2009) Love is not how we feel about a person, it is about who we are. Love is who we choose to be in a situation. But more importantly – love is not just our thoughts – love is our actions – what we actually do. So this Valentine’s Day – let us be the love we are looking for. Let us pray……. WHAT'S GOD GOT TO DO WITH IT? If you “Google” the word love, and you have to be very careful doing this, you will find all sorts of websites,120,000,000 to be exact. Here are some examples that you will find: I love Dogs.com I love Cats.com (Although this one is a plea to spay or neuter) I love Cheese. Com I love Lucy.com We love the Iraqi Information Minister.com True Romance Dating Service.com Love Test.com Matchmaker.com The Love Calculator.com On this site you type in your name and your mates name and it gives you the odds of your relationship lasting. Alana and I got 41%) The interesting aspect is that on all these sites, love is seen as almost an entirely human endeavor. [Love from a Kid’s Point of View, Citation: "What Is Love—From a Kid’s Point of View," LightSinger, (accessed 3-14-02)] What is love, from a kid’s point of view? "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love." "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth." "Love is when someone hurts you, and you get so mad, but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings." "Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is okay." "Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." "Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." "Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." "Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." "You really shouldn’t say ’I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."