1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Faith, Hope, and Love
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Without love I am nothing...
American Evangelist Billy Graham wrote on May 31, 2011: There is something Jesus said that I want you to think about...Jesus said to those who followed Him: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”...As we see a war-torn world–a world that is sick, pained, confused and bewildered–we believe that this is the hour for the church to speak out...This is the hour for the church to show forth the love and grace of God!...This is the hour for the world to hear Christ saying through the church, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6)...There is something Jesus said that I want you to think about...Jesus said to those who followed Him: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35)...That verse of Scripture is tremendously important at this hour in American history...In another part of the Bible we find the same thing stated by John: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God...He who does not love does not know God, for God is LOVE...In this the LOVE of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His Only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him...In this is LOVE, not that we loved God, but that He LOVED us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:7-10)...The Bible declares that we who follow Jesus Christ should be just as much in love with each other as God was in LOVE with us when He sent His Son to die on the cross...I want you to see what it means to love as God LOVES, because the Bible says, “God is LOVE” (1 John 4:16)...The basic attribute of God is holiness, but LOVE is another basic attribute of God...It is a part of God’s nature to LOVE...We, and all who know Jesus Christ as Savior also have this supernatural love instilled within their hearts by the Holy Spirit...The greatest demonstration of the fact that we are Christians is that we love one another...In 1 Corinthians 13, we have first a description of a man who does not possess love...The Apostle Paul says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1)...In other words, suppose I could speak with the oratory of a William Jennings Bryan...Suppose I could speak with cryptic language like Churchill...Suppose I could speak with the power of Roosevelt, in which he used to sway an entire nation...Suppose I could sing opera like Enrico Caruso...Suppose I had a thousand tongues that could speak a thousand languages at the same time...The Bible says all that is nothing, and I am nothing, unless I have this Divine, Supernatural LOVE that God gives...The apostle goes on to write, “Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge...but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2)...I could be a man of tremendous knowledge; I could understand all the mysteries and all of history, and be able to put all the patterns together...I could know the Bible from one end to the other; memorize thousands of verses of Scripture...I could be a great Bible teacher; I could even be a preacher from the pulpit–and have not love...I know people in this country who are conservative in their theology–people who would die contending for the inspiration of the Bible–and yet there is so little love...I might know the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, but if I had not love, it would mean absolutely nothing in the sight of God...