1 Corinthians 13:1-8

[public domain]

Roses, by Henri Fantin-Latour, 1884

The Excellence of Love

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;

love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly;

it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness,

but rejoices in truth;

bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never fails

1 Corinthians 13:1-8 NASB

Valentine’s Day

[public domain]

Saint Valentine Kneeling In Supplication, by David Teniers III, 1600’s

I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.  Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.  Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.  Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Psalms 85:8-11

1 John 2:15-17

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

1 John 2:15-17