Chat Pack Challenge 6 – The Greatest of These

Today’s question: What do you think is the most valuable attribute for any person to have?

Ooh, this is a good one today. This question drives at a very personal subject for me t. I hope this isn’t confusing the way it's written.

The Greatest of These

…The greatest of these is love…

He closed the book and closed his eyes. The passage had etched a picture on the inside of his eyelids. It was a picture of a lonely hill, an angry mob standing at the top while angry dark clouds hovered overhead. From the distance he was in his mind-picture, he could just make out the shape of three crosses.

He knew that each bore a man ‘til their death. One man bore an extra weight besides his own body. It was the weight of the world.

…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. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not love, I gain nothing…

That man’s name was Love.

…Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves…

For it was love that drove him to bear the cross upon that hill that day. It was love that kept him nailed there. It was love that kept him locked within his frail human flesh.

…Love never fails...

It was a love for the world – past and future. For you. For me. For those who spat at him, teasing, jeering at his feet, watching him die, naked and humiliated, on that cross.

… But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 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. 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…

But Love did it because he knew. He knew the price and he paid it willingly. In the act of the greatest sacrifice, Love gave all.

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