What Love Is

I wanted to include this paraphrase by David Sanford of 1 Corinthians 13 to close the message on Sunday, but couldn’t fit it all in. It’s definitely worth the read:

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 orphans 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 finds 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!