Love Extravagantly

In my quest for some answers God took me to the following scripture last night. It reminded me that I have a long way to go in my walk with Him and that if I am focusing on the faults of others it distracts me from allowing God to work in my life. No matter what my feelings about any given thing if I do not respond in the love of Christ I am doing absolutely nothing to further his kingdom.

I Corinthians 13 (The Message)

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstacy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God's Word with power, reavealing all his myeteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have that says to the 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 burnedas 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 wan't 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.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day, praying in tongues will end; understanding will rach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be cancelled.
When I was an infant at my mothers breast, I gurgled and cooed like an infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don't seet hings 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 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 bst of the three is LOVE.