So this weekend I went to Winterfest. For those of you who don't know what Winterfest is, its a wonderful youth rally in Gatlinburg, TN. Some 1200 youth show up every year. This year our theme was "Love God, Love Others." The scripture this weekend was from Matthew 22:37-39 " 37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" I know that God loves me soooo much and I love him as well, but I started to think this weekend if I show that love towards others. And do I love others as I love myself? When we started talking about loving others I couldn't help to think about my horrible road rage, Nikki Hobby and Kyla Greer can attest to that. I thought that I loved pretty well but now I'm not so sure anymore. One love, one of my new favorite verses is the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. Thats the "love is patient, love is kind" chapter but have you read the entire chapter? It starts by saying that you can do so much for God but if you don't have love than its nothing new. So how do you love others? What can we do to love others?
"1If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body [to hardship] that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
-1 Corinthians 13