All Things Love: Wrap Up

*This is the fifth installment of All Things Love week. If you'd like to start at the beginning and work your way through, you can read about how we have to change our thought process on love, here. Day two of ATL week is all about the breakdowns of romance. If you are looking for romantic ideas for Valentines Day, click here. Read part four to see what effective love is all about.


We are at the end of ATL week! I really enjoyed doing this. If you know anything about me, you know I love love.  I am a huge proponent of loving and being loved and even I get in my own way when it comes to loving. For everything I've done right I have done four things wrong. But, its the thought that counts. Its the time and effort that is poured into whatever task that speaks volumes. Show the person you love that you love them, today. Don't wait for a Hallmark holiday. Give it because you feel it. 


Now, I absolutely cannot spend and entire week on love and not talk about where love comes from. The creator of love is the biggest lover Himself. His love defines all love. He IS love. 


Psalm 5:11
Let all who run to you for protection always sing joyful songs. Provide shelter for those who truly love you and let them rejoice.


And of course, maybe the most well known verses on love...

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

Love

If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever. 

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. 

Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear. It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.

There are three things that will endure--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love.

Thanks for sticking with me during All Things Love week!