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The Excellence of Love. 1st Cor.13: 1-7

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But it actually starts in 1st Corinthians 12:27

(27) "Now you are Christ's body, and individual members of it. (28) And God has appointed in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
(29) All are not apostles are they? All are not workers of miracles are they?
(30) But earnestly desire the greater gifts.
And I will show you A MORE EXCELLENT WAY.

Chapter 13: 1-7 @ 13 The EXCELLENCE OF LOVE (A more excellent way)
(1) If I speak with the tongues of men and angels ,but do not have LOVE, I have become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.
(2) And if i have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all knowledge, and if I have all faith to move mountains, but DO NOT HAVE LOVE, I AM NOTHING.
(3) And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have LOVE, it profits me nothing.
(4) Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; LOVE does not brag, and is not arrogant,
(5) does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek it's own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
(6) does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
(7) LOVE bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(8) LOVE NEVER FAILS.
(13) But now ABIDE (To live in, and from), faith, hope and LOVE, these three, but the GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.

THOUGHTS??
ANY CONVERSATION??
 
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:wave
I posted this a few days ago and then started "mulling over" where I was going with this and decided to stop and do some more "Mulling" - LOL.
I will post on it soon, but need to pray and have the HOLY SPIRIT work this out for me.
Thanks for your patience :thumbsup.

By the way, I love discussing ALL kind of topics, but I don't yell at people through CAPITAL LETTERS. I use those to just make a point about what I'm saying.
I'm pretty lay back and easy to talk to, and never get angry or impatient.
I've been beat up on a ton of forums, so I know what that's like, and you won't get anything like that from me.
I just want to bring up topic and discuss them, and get your idea's too, which will be treated with the greatest amount of respect.
I'm not a scholar who thinks he knows everything, 'cause I don't, so whatever I say is just my opinion to consider, NOT, this is how it is and you'd better accept it, like in some churches, or with some people.

God bless you all, as together we search for God's truth.

My name is OLIGOS
 
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I thought it was edifying.
My wife and I have been attending, and actively participating in leading worship at a new church since Covid shut our regular church down.

These people love God, and we feel like family. However, they are a bit more... Expressive..., yeah, that's the right word.... I think.

They are a bit more expressive in their love for the Lord than either of us are accustom to. Frankly, some of it is just weird for us. If we hadn't gotten to know these people and just wandered in for a service, honestly, we would have left scratching our heads.

As I get older, I'm realizing the right church is about sharing love for one another and having that love present when we come to corporate worship. It's not about hitting the notes perfect everytime. Instead, it's about opening our heart and expressing that love through song both upward and outward.
 
But it actually starts in 1st Corinthians 12:27

(27) "Now you are Christ's body, and individual members of it. (28) And God has appointed in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
(29) All are not apostles are they? All are not workers of miracles are they?
(30) But earnestly desire the greater gifts.
And I will show you A MORE EXCELLENT WAY.

Chapter 13: 1-7 @ 13 The EXCELLENCE OF LOVE (A more excellent way)
(1) If I speak with the tongues of men and angels ,but do not have LOVE, I have become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.
(2) And if i have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries, and have all knowledge, and if I have all faith to move mountains, but DO NOT HAVE LOVE, I AM NOTHING.
(3) And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have LOVE, it profits me nothing.
(4) Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; LOVE does not brag, and is not arrogant,
(5) does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek it's own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,
(6) does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
(7) LOVE bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(8) LOVE NEVER FAILS.
(13) But now ABIDE (To live in, and from), faith, hope and LOVE, these three, but the GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.

THOUGHTS??
ANY CONVERSATION??

I think many of us look at these scriptures and see that we want to have a greater amount of love and the attributes of love than we presently have because for the Christian there is a deep inward desire to be more like Jesus, no matter how far we have come in the ways of love we all know there is more to have... that we may be filled to all the fullness of Christ.



For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus who witnessed the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep this commandment without spot, blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ’s appearing. 1 Timothy 6:10-14


  • But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life


For me personally, there has been the turning away of things that entangle me in things contrary to His character, then I am able to lay hold of more.


IOW, for me it has always been... what am I willing to give up to attain more of Him, who is Love?



JLB
 
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So, here I am, thinking I was going to have all these things to say with more verses to validate everything,, and the Holy Spirit steps in and gives me a different direction, and one very minor part of a verse, even sometimes an overlooked part of a very important verse, is now part of a study I'm doing, going on-line and searching out opinions of people I trust or some that just say things that are in agreement with many other topics as well as this one.
I search out many commentaries with bible in hand and other bible learning tools close by, and like the Bereans mentioned in the book of Acts.
I sometimes read 10 to 20 commentaries, and then print the ones out that seem to be in most agreement with each other in their opinions and agree with a lot of what I have learned in the last 40 some years.
This is how the Majority Text Bible came about Vs. the Minority text.

I have about 5 commentaries I have printed out and around 30 pages, so the rest of the day I'll be studying these, and see where it leads me, especially the last part of Mark12:31, where it says we are to LOVE OURSELVES.

I never thought about LOVING MYSELF as an action, or at all, but here scripture says "The second command is like the first, to love others (Your neighbor) as you LOVE YOURSELF. Never thought about loving myself and what that means and how do I do that in my actions, in a Godly way. HUMMM !!

I'LL BE BAAACK - :yes
My name is OLIGOS
 
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So, for the last 20 years or so in my Christian walk, I have come to the conclusion that I can't give away things like patience, and kindness, not being jealous, not being a gossip, not being angry, etc., if I don't already have those character traits as my own.
All through the bible is a very large list of what NOT TO BE and what NOT TO DO as a Christian, as well as there is a list of what TO BE and NOT BE, as a Christian, but, in order to have those character traits, we have to seek those things with DILIGENCE and MUCH PRAYER in order to change ourselves and love ourselves, so we can love people "Authentically, from a loving, caring "Godly" heart."

But we can't do that until we learn to love ourselves from a Godly heart.
So, how do we love ourselves in all the choices we make daily, that's pleasing to God, and is good and LOVING for all those around us too??

Any thoughts while I'm gone searching this out some more??

Love you all and God bless you.
My name is OLIGOS
 
OK... So far a lot of good basic sensible things to consider about SELF LOVE like feeling good about yourself and having self confidence because possibly you have gotten involved in church ministry or a ministry outside the church walls, and have had some success with the people maybe you've been trying to help, as well as with the staff, if your involved with an organization.
Or maybe you aren't confident and don't have a strong self worth, but you want to serve and honor God with more confidence, and enjoy people more, so possible you could go get some counseling and talk about your issues and what your past was like, so you can grow and move on to learning to really love yourself in a healthy, Godly, confident way.
That's what I did.

I'm a pretty loving outgoing person, with a "Bubbly personality", and a lot of confidence, and really enjoy being around people, but there was a time I was so insecure and really struggled with being in crowds especially.

It was really tough putting myself out there with people, so in my first church, I volunteered to be the morning greeter.
Boy was that not only a test, but a huge growing experience.
Then after I had been there for a while the pastor asked me to deliver a message on Sunday morning to the entire church - THE ENTIRE CHURCH !!
I thought I was going to throw up - LOL !!

So I was a long way from learning about self love, but I DID KNOW I needed to change and be more confident in myself, if I was going to tell people about Christ, the right way, not just throw it at them and see if it sticks.

So, after reading all the commentaries to day, and mixing with my maturing views on Christianity, what are some of my thoughts on the above versus of 1st Cor. 13 on love, and the entire topic of Godly love, and then adding in the topic of SELF-LOVE??

Alright now, this is about as long as I want this, so I'll come back with the rest of this tomorrow.

My name is OLIGOS
 
So here we are.
I talked about the basics and foundation of loving others and God, by learning to love yourself, so that the love God teaches you to have for yourself, eventually you can give away to others from a genuine honest heart, when your sharing with them, the Christ that can save them.
Remember, you can't give away to others what you don't have for yourself from God!!

So what does this have to do with 1st Cor. 13:1-7?
This is foundational.
Everything we read in 1st Cor. 13:1-7 are SUPER-NATURAL character traits of Gods, like we talked about in other threads here, and those character traits can't be ours unless we develop a foundation of faith FROM GOD so those traits can become a part of us through much prayer and desire, and petition to God, and letting Him teach us through experience, and prayer and making mistakes and learning from them..
We don't get them by OSMOSIS or just hanging around other Christians.

Once we learn those AUTHENTIC TRAITS from God, we can apply them using 1st Cor. 10:31, "So whatever you eat or drink, or WHATEVER you do, do it all to the glory of God.

So while we're doing all this, we need to remember at the same time, this is not to bring attention to ourselves, we do ALL, including being loving, to bring Glory to God.

And while doing those 2 things for God, also remember that while we're doing this, 2nd Cor. 5:15 says, we no longer live for ourselves, but all we do, is because we belong to God, and live for God not just because we are told to.
We aren't robots, or rule keepers, or legalists, all that we do, is because of GODLY SUPER-NATURAL LOVE.

Well, that's it folks.
Any comments, criticisms, don't agree - any conversation??

God bless you all for taking the time to be here. May you be genuinely and magnificently blessed beyond your wildest imaginations.
My name is OLIGOS
 
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So here we are.
I talked about the basics and foundation of loving others and God, by learning to love yourself, so that the love God teaches you to have for yourself, eventually you can give away to others from a genuine honest heart, when your sharing with them, the Christ that can save them.
Remember, you can't give away to others what you don't have for yourself from God!!

So what does this have to do with 1st Cor. 13:1-7?
This is foundational.
Everything we read in 1st Cor. 13:1-7 are SUPER-NATURAL character traits of Gods, like we talked about in other threads here, and those character traits can't be ours unless we develop a foundation of faith FROM GOD so those traits can become a part of us through much prayer and desire, and petition to God, and letting Him teach us through experience, and prayer and making mistakes and learning from them..
We don't get them by OSMOSIS or just hanging around other Christians.

Once we learn those AUTHENTIC TRAITS from God, we can apply them using 1st Cor. 10:31, "So whatever you eat or drink, or WHATEVER you do, do it all to the glory of God.

So while we're doing all this, we need to remember at the same time, this is not to bring attention to ourselves, we do ALL, including being loving, to bring Glory to God.

And while doing those 2 things for God, also remember that while we're doing this, 2nd Cor. 5:15 says, we no longer live for ourselves, but all we do, is because we belong to God, and live for God not just because we are told to.
We aren't robots, or rule keepers, or legalists, all that we do, is because of GODLY SUPER-NATURAL LOVE.

Well, that's it folks.
Any comments, criticisms, don't agree - any conversation??

God bless you all for taking the time to be here. May you be genuinely and magnificently blessed beyond your wildest imaginations.
My name is OLIGOS
If we don't love ourselves, it won't matter if we do things that will result in being thrown into the lake of fire.
If we do love ourselves, we will do everything we can to avoid a hellish punishment.
 
If we don't love ourselves, it won't matter if we do things that will result in being thrown into the lake of fire.
If we do love ourselves, we will do everything we can to avoid a hellish punishment.


Thank you for your comments.
Our intentions mean everything to God. He knows our hearts and the future until the end, and that makes me wonder why so many people act like He can't when their such phonies and try to pretend to be something their not.

I guess it's all part of that package of being a "TARE."

Remember "HOPEFUL", that the self love you mention, isn't anything we can manufacture for ourselves. It's a SUPER NATURAL LOVE that only God Himself can give, when we ask through prayer, and is far beyond anything we could even ever imagine, because God is far beyond anything we could ever imagine or comprehend.

If we try to create our own SUPER NATURAL LOVE without God doing it for us, we are denying His power in our lives and denying our need for Christ.

No SUPER NATURAL LOVE, NO SALVATION !!

God bless you all as we sometimes struggle to know the truth, but never give up.
My name is OLIGOS
 
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What a beautiful thread Oligos.
I believe that if you keep the first commandment Jesus gave us and you truly love God with all your heart, mind and strength, you really do keep the second commandment because it is put in your heart to do so.
You can see and feel anothers pain or need, and you are desperate to take it away from them.
Why would a Christian want to hurt anyone? Wjy compete with each other?
I have found whenever you ask God to give you more love in your heart you feel so close to Him and you can feel the Love of God.
Blessings to you all.
 
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