The Heart of Love 1 Corinthians 13

click to Read the passage: 1 Corinthians 13  (a new browser window will open)

accompanying grace- 2 Corin. 9: 8 God able to make all grace abound to you; 12: 9 grace sufficient; 2 Peter 3: 18 grow in grace;--goes back to saving grace.

v.1 1. Love is empowered by God’s goodness and grace.

(Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not

  charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.)

v.2 2. Love is enlightened by God’s understanding.

(And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, 

  and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove

  mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.)

v.3 3. Love is equipped with God’s generosity.

(And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give

  my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.)

v.4 4. Love endures with God’s capacities.

(Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth

  not itself, is not puffed up.)

v.5 5. Love is guided by God’s Spirit.

(Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily

  provoked, thinketh no evil;)

v.6,7 6. Love is upheld by God’s truth.

(Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;)

(Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all

  things.)

v.8 7. Love is unending; it has no lapse nor failing.

(Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail,

  whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge,

  it shall vanish away.)

v.9 8. God’s heart is love’s capacity; not the heart of the one loving in and of

  itself.

(For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.)

v.10 9. Love is founded upon Christ’s perfection; emanating from Jesus.

(But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall

  be done away.)

v.11 10. Love is the virtue of maturity in a believer.

(When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I 

  thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.)

v.12 11. Love is the clarity of a child of God’s vision.

(For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I

  know in part; but then  shall I know even as also I am known.)

v.12 12. Love is the view of a child of God’s hope.

v.13 13. Love is the anchor of a child of God’s life.

(And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of

  these is charity.)

v.13  14.  Love is God's expression of equality.