What REAL love is!

LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13

If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and the Church, but I fail to ask about
your needs and then help you, I'm simply making a lot of empty religious noise.

If I graduate from theological seminary and know all the answers to questions
you'll never even think of asking, and if I have all the degrees to prove it and
if I say I believe in God with all my heart, and soul and strength, and claim to
have incredible answers to my prayers to show it, but I fail to take the time to
find out where you're at and what makes you laugh and why you cry, I'm nothing.

If I sell an extra car and some of my books to raise money for some poor
starving kids somewhere, and if I give my life for God's service and burn out
after pouring everything I have into the work, but do it all without ever once
thinking about the people, the real hurting people-the moms and dads and sons
and daughters and orpha ns and widows and the lonely and hurting-if I pour my
life into the Kingdom but forget to make it relevant to those here on earth, my
energy is wasted, and so is my life.

Here is what love is like--genuine love. God's kind of love. It's patient. It
can wait. It helps others, even if they never find out who did it. Love doesn't
look for greener pastures or dream of how things could be better if I just got
rid of all my current commitments. Love doesn't boast. It doesn't try to build
itself up to be something it isn't. Love doesn't act in a loose, immoral way. It
doesn't seek to take, but it willingly gives. Love doesn't lose its cool. It
doesn't turn on and off. Love doesn't think about how bad the other person is,
and certainly doesn't think of how it could get back at someone. Love is grieved
deeply (as God is) over the evil in this world, but it rejoices over truth.

Love comes and sits with you when you're feeling down and f inds out what is
wrong. It empathizes with you and believes in you. Love knows you'll come
through just as God planned, and love sticks right beside you all the way. Love
doesn't give up, or quit, or diminish or go home. Love keeps on keeping on, even
when everything goes wrong and the feelings leave and the other person doesn't
seem as special anymore. Love succeeds 100 percent of the time. That, my friend,
is what real love is!

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