But The Greatest Of These Is Love

Psalm 139

If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love,
I am nothing.

And if I dole out all my goods,
and if I deliver my body that I may boast but have not love,
nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.

It does not rejoice over the wrong,
but rejoices in the truth
It covers all things,
it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,
it endures in all things.
Love never falls in ruins;

but whether prophecies, they will be abolished;
or tongues, they will cease;
or knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.
But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.
When I was an infant, I spoke as an infant, I reckoned as an infant;

when I became [an adult], I abolished the things of the infant.
For now we see through a mirror in an enigma,
but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.
But now remains faith, hope, love,
these three...

but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39
This is the love of Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her." It is Christ’s love for the church, his bride. Christ has a love for all, and he has a special, saving, preserving love for his bride. You know you are part of that bride if you trust Christ. Anyone – no exceptions – anyone who trusts Christ can say, I am part of his bride, his church, his called and chosen ones, the ones who verse says are kept and protected forever no matter what.