And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

2. And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

3. 1Corinthians 13:1-13 (NIV) • 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.

4. 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.

5. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

6. 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.

7. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8. 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

13. Real love is: • Not an infatuation (On fire one month, stone cold the next) • Not a lust (Filling a need and then gone)

14. Matthew 13:3-9 (NIV) • 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

15. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.

16. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

17. Real love is Mature

18. 8 But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

19. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 1 Corinthians 3:1-2 (NIV) • 3 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready

25. Galatians 5:22 (NIV) • 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

26. John 16:12-13 (NIV) • 12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

27. I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ.

28. 1 Corinthians 14:20 (NIV) • 20 Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.

29. Joshua 24:15 (NIV) • 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, …

30. 13 And now theses three remain • Faith, Hope and Love • But the greatest of these is love

31. Joshua 24:15 (NIV) • 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, …

32. Hebrews 5:12-14 (NIV) • 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

33. 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

34. 1 John 4:19 • “We love because He first loved us.”