This came to me via another list.  Thought it was well worth sharing.  Hope
you find it as thought provoking as I have.



LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13
If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and 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 Bible college 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 mums 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!

David Sanford

David Sanford serves as adjunct professor of journalism at Western Baptist
College (
www.wbc.edu
). David and his wife Renée are co-authors of the
400 pages of devotional application notes in the Living Faith Bible