Skip to main content

Wednesday... But what is really important, what is really real?


Wednesday... But what is really important, what is really real?

We have these ideas and these words that we throw around as important. Over in Proverbs 7:18 (MSG) a seductress says to a young man, who isn't her husband, "Come let's make love all night, spend the night in ecstatic lovemaking." Now love is so very important but it must be real and that isn't real. Without a doubt, that isn't real.

1 Corinthians 13 starts out in verse 1 (MSG) by saying, "If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate." Love is so very important but it must be real.

I love the English language but it can be so confusing. Here are two places where the same word is used but they do not mean the same. In the day that we live in today the word love is misused over and over. But not in God's world.

Verse 2 says, "If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all the 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." 

Real love is so important.

In verses 12 & 13 Paul the writer of this letter says, "We don't 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 consummation. Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of these is love."

So what is real love? Verses 4-7 (NLT) says, "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." We need that kind of love today. We really, really do. 

Verse 13 in the NLT says, "Three things will last forever - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love." Now that is really important and really real. Yes, yes! #todaysbeginning


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Friday... We have this hope of expectancy.

Psalm 5:3 (NLT), "Listen to my voice in the morning Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly." Friday... We have this hope of expectancy. Now David found a great way to start his day. He says in Psalm 5:1-3 (NLT), "O LORD, hear me as I pray." And that is a great place to start. It really is. Morning sunrise He goes on, "Listen to my cry for help, my King, my God, for I pray to no one but you." And that is so important. We don't try to pump ourselves up by ourself. No, we pray to no one but you, God, my LORD, my King. Now this relationship with God is so, so very important. And then David says, "Listen to my voice in the morning, LORD. Each morning I bring my requests to you" And that is so great. And then he says, "and wait expectantly." Yes, we have this hope of expectancy. We are experienced. That is what a relationship with God and a moment by moment connection does. It makes a difference in our daily wa...

Friday... Yes, we can know this to be true.

Psalm 12:6 (NLT), "The Lord's promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over." Friday... Yes, we can know this to be true. Maybe this is what you want to say in this day in which we live. Psalm 12:1-2 (MSG) says, "Quick, I need your helping hand! The last decent person just went down, all the friends I depend on gone. Everyone talks in lie language; lies slide off their oily lips. They doubletalk with forked tongues." Do you ever feel that way?" Have you found that to be true? Well David the writer of this Psalm continues and says in verse 6 something to encourage us, to lift us up, to give us hope. Psalm 12:6 (NLT) says, "The Lord's promises are pure, like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over." The Message Paraphrase says verses 6-8 this way, "God's words are pure words, pure silver words refined seven times in the fires of his word-kiln, pure on earth as well as in heaven, God, keep ...

Friday... So what is it that you really fear?

1 Corinthians 15:57 (NLT), "But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ." Friday... So what is it that you really fear? Yes, fear holds us back. It seems to take hold of us so that we can't even really enjoy living. Now I have found that one of the best ways to handle fear is to solve the problem of what we fear. Let's say that death is what we really fear. Everyday we wake up afraid to get up because we are afraid to do anything because we are afraid to die. And that is so understandable. Now I have found the solution to fearing death. I have through faith taken care of my fear to die. 1 Corinthians 15:57 (NLT) says, "But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 22 (CEV) says, "Adam brought death to all of us, and Christ will bring life to all of us." Death was not God's plan. Adam was created for an eternal life but he and his partner, Eve blew it and sin a...