1 Corinthians is likely the most quoted Bible passage on the topic of love, and rightly so. It clearly draws the blueprints for what love should look like. But, sometimes the power of a passage is lost in our familiarity with it.
Take a moment to read it from the Message Bible. Read it like it's the first time you've ever received God's instructions on how to love. Consider your relationship with your husband or your wife as you read. Let it shake you up. And let it move you to truly love.
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't 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 love, I'm nothing. If 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.
(I Corinthinas 13:1-7, The Message Bible)
