A More Excellent Way: The Transforming Power of True Love

A Chapter a Day

• Sunday, August 23, 2 Corinthians 1
• Monday, August 24, 2 Corinthians 2
• Tuesday, August 25, 2 Corinthians 3
• Wednesday, August 26, 2 Corinthians 4
• Thursday, August 27, 2 Corinthians 5
• Friday, August 28, 2 Corinthians 6
• Saturday, August 29, 2 Corinthians 7

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 1 Corinthians 13

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. 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. (ESV)

1. The way of is the most excellent way.

• Without love, what I is just noise.
• Without love, what I is insignificant.
• Without love, what I is not enough.
• Without love, what I is of no real value.
• Without love, what I brings no lasting benefit.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (ESV)

2. True love . . .   Scale of 1 to 5: Never (1) — Sometimes (3) — Always (5)

(1)  Is patient 

(2)  Is kind 

(3)  Does not envy 

(4)  Does not boast 

(5)  Is not arrogant 

(6)  Is not rude 

(7)  Does not insist on its own way 

(8)  Is not irritable 

(9)  Is not resentful 

(10)  Does not rejoice at wrongdoing 

(11)  Does rejoice with the truth 

(12)  Bears all things 

(13)  Believes all things 

(14)  Hopes all things 

(15)  Endures all things 

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. (ESV)

3. True love .

 ¹¹ 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. ¹² 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. (ESV)

4. True love is a sign of spiritual . 

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

¹⁴ Pursue love, . . .. (ESV) 

5. True love is both a and a .

 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, . . . . (Galatians 5:22a, ESV).

“Pursue” = to do something with intense effort and with definite purpose or goal—‘to do with effort, to strive toward.’ (Greek-English Lexicon)

6. True love and is the best way to live!