Fw: the greatest of these...

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 7:37 AM
Subject: the greatest of these...

1 Corinthians 13:8 "Love never ends."

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The famous "love chapter", 1 Corinthians reads like music...flowing with beautiful words of love.  I was thinking about love this morning and considering why love is so important.  Certainly it is the mark of maturity when we put others before ourselves and it reflects the attitude of the Lord toward us.  Christ put all of us before himself that one day we could walk before him, ourselves.

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I believe that love is such a great quality because it is the 'language of Heaven'.  There are many differences between life here, in the flesh...on earth, and in Heaven.  The things we see...the experiences we have...the nature of Creation on the planet and in the spirit realm.  In fact the differences seem so vast...so incomprehensible!

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But if we have learned to love here, I believe that the transition to Heaven will be seamless.  If our attitude is: "others before self", "what is best for all", "whole- hearted submission to the Lord rather than to 'Me'", then we carry the same mindset that we will have on the other side of life's fence, in Heaven.

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The 'love chapter' describes what love looks like in relationships (patient, kind, unselfish, rejoicing in truth, full of faith and endurance).  It reflects a life that is walking outwardly what is carried inwardly and shows we are truly free.  The battle of life's ultimate question has been answered for us...we have found forever living through faith in the living God...and so we can now give completely to others that they also might glimpse this freedom.

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The reason I think that love is the language of Heaven is found in verse 13 of chapter 13: "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love".  The writer tells us just before this that even the greatest of spiritual gifts like prophecy, speaking in the tongues of angels, wisdom and insight all are only partial pictures of the perfection of Heaven and they pass away or are overcome by the reality of the complete picture of Heaven.  But love doesn't pass away because love is the one thing that is directly carried over from this life to the next.  If we walk in love here, we won't stumble across the threshold of Heaven and we will truly feel at home.

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blessings,

Rob Smith