Love

God is love. We knew the word before we learned our own names. But have we thought about it? Do we know what is inside it? Is it present now in our churches — in the Body?

Sadly, we have lost the meaning of love even inside our churches. Love became: “You are dear to me when you do what I want; you are disobedient and bad when you do not.” Big words said carelessly, and nobody does anything. “Yes, we love each other, the Body is connected, everything is fine.” Of course — I forgot that we Egyptians hate honesty.

Where is the love of God that does not seek its own? Where is the love that thinks no evil? People suspect each other because of how much they carry against each other.

It is strange that these days love distinguishes one person from another: some are favored, others are the ugly ducklings.

Objection: “No, dear, we still love each other, we care about each other, you will not lose us.” But in the end we do not care, people are lost, and we feel nothing. Everything is still “fine.”

My words are harsh, but the words that follow are not mine; they belong to the One who made me and made you. Listen:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. 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. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

After all this, do you still think there is real love inside the Body — the love that is supposed to look like Christ?