Are you really ready for a serious relationship?

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.  If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.
 
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

I Corinthians 13 ~ The Message Bible

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I love how the Message Bible brings truths right home in such a profound way.  This is really what love truly is.  It's not what Hollywood portrays.  It's about what we do when we aren't particularly feeling the butterflies in our stomach anymore when we are around our partner.  It's found in our response when our kids get on  our last nerve.  It's what we choose to do when the dog we love so much has an accident all over the floor.  It's how we react when a friend disappoints us.   We don't even begin to have a "love" test until something happens to challenge us.

 It's a cake walk to love when things are good.  Not so much when we're disappointed. 

Love really shows itself in what we do, how we respond, what we choose and how we react.

Are you dating someone and considering a lifetime commitment to them?  Forget for just a moment about how you feel when you are making out with them and ask yourself how you would respond if you had to change their diaper.