‘I’m not happy.’

‘I met someone’

IF you claim to be a follower of the Bridegroom of the church, Jesus Christ and things don’t go quite your way, would you tell Jesus to ‘get out’?

Would you look for someone better, who might make you happy in this world?

(Did God really say, “Don’t eat of the fruit of that tree?”)

IF you are unfaithful to Christ’s love, would it not be adultery?

Though you claim to be a follower of Jesus, so had Judas!

This is the unfortunate false witness of some with a cross in front of their home, ‘christianity’ claimed before ‘friends’ as religion, their stamp of approval before the world. These claim many things by the ‘Blood of Jesus,’ yet their more bold witness of worldly sins again crucifies hope in His body and true Bride, the church.

Some have heard the following, even at weddings, known as the ‘love chapter.’

IF Jesus Christ is your love, listen then to true love, you adulterers of Christ!

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

I have heard in churches the noisy gongs of ‘single moms,’ divorced grandmas and others clanging the noise of their own ‘higher’ worship, ‘tongues of angels,’ God’s messengers; as if we should follow these women, rather than Christ Jesus as Lord. Will they who are not bowed down to their husband or any man in Christ not lead the faith astray with their babel?

² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

I have heard prophesy given in the church. Is it from God? Why then did the church not record the very prediction of God given? Is the prophesy confirmed and witnessed to the glory of our Lord, Christ Jesus? Yes, sometimes; but believer beware of the wolves in our midst.

Have you not endured some claiming such superior knowledge and understanding of mysteries who would teach us of their ‘faith to remove mountains’ in their Sunday school class or church small group?

Did you experience the embrace of Christ’s love in their Pharisaical instruction? Did you hear love for you in their teaching or prophesy?

I, too, have received prophesy and spoken it. The revelation of the Lord is a terrible and awesome thing!

Some prophesy has not yet come to pass. For all I know, I may have been given some spirit of deception to accomplish the Lord’s overpowering purpose. Yet in these last days we must fear the Lord, always listening for the approaching trumpet of truth over the blaring cries of some claiming ‘understanding.’

Read your Bible and pray for revelation by the Spirit of Truth in scripture.

³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

‘And though I bestow,‘ states the King James; bestow, an interesting word more related to charity as we understand it – charity, agape love of God, used in application throughout these verses of the love chapter.

Bestow: to feed by putting a bit or crumb (of food) into the mouth; of infants, young animals etc.; to feed, nourish to give a thing; to feed someone, feed out to

Feed on God’s word in scripture. Nourish your spirit in prayer.

Does this not also bring to mind the love a father and a mother, given to their child, their teen, their grown adult children, even their spouse given in marriage into your own family? Is this not also the gift of adoption given by our Heavenly Father through Christ to gentile believers (like most of us)?

Are we not all poor and needy, dependent on our Father’s forgiving gracious love?

Though I give to the poor, but have not love…

Is that our charity of witness?

Now that I have shared the seriousness of God’s love for us, allow me to share the more familiar actions of love often and appropriately shared at weddings:

⁴ Love is patient and kind;

love does not envy or boast;

it is not arrogant ⁵

 or rude.

Are you patient to your spouse, to whom you are joined to each other and God by your vows?

Is your husband (or wife) patient with you – patient for you?

Is your love for your beloved partner until death – kind?

Are you, dear father, and you, dear mother, kind to your son – kind to your daughter – kind to each and all of your children (obedient and faithful, or rebellious and hateful)? Are you kind to your adopted child, your step-child, your child (even an adult child) given into your nurture by God to raise and guide in the Lord, Christ Jesus?

Is your love patient and kind even to your prodigal teen?

Is your love for your spouse, your children, your brothers and sisters in Christ ALWAYS patient and kind? Lord help us, impatient and unkind sinners!

It does not insist on its own way;

it is not irritable or resentful;

it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Are you just another ‘spoiled child’ of God in your relationships with others in your daily life?

⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Lord: Convict us and forgive us, for the sake of your Son, our loving Savior, Jesus Christ. Help me – help us to love you more and more; help us, miserable saved sinners, to love those you love with your overflowing agape love.

⁸ Love never ends.

To be continued…