“Good example is the best sermon.” BEN FRANKLIN

“Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
1 CORINTHIANS 12:30-13:2 NIV

I’m from Missouri and you got to “Show Me.” Missouri is known as the Show Me State. I’m not sure how we got that slogan, but that’s what they say about us. The apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Corinth says, “I will show you the most excellent way.” He is referring to the way of love. Having great spiritual gifts from God is an awesome and wonderful blessing to the body of Christ, the Church. But Paul says love is the most excellent way. Being able to give great dialogues and speak healing words that change lives is another wonderful gift, but Paul says love is the most excellent way. To be able to prophesy down the road and help others find direction, and to know vast amounts of knowledge is another wonderful gift, but Paul says love is the most excellent way. To have exercised your faith to a point where it can be found to be strong and sure, and to be able to teach others about faith is a God given gift, but Paul says if you “have not love,” you are nothing. I take it that love must be the greatest influence on our lives that we can experience. As I look back in my life I draw from an example of where love was “the most excellent way.” I am not proud of the example I am about to use, but love seems to be the factor that stands out after all these years. In 1970 I was a young man having just recently returned from Vietnam, and I became involved with a young lady and we started living together. She was the daughter of missionary parents who had lived almost all of her life in Equator. Not only were we not married, but, we were involved in drugs and our life style of being vegetarian and practicing Hinduism went totally against the beliefs of her parents. We flaunted it in front of them being rebellious like many of the youth of that day. I recall one time her parents came for a visit and how her father treated me. He was kind, he did not condemn me, he listened to me and did not ignore me, he treated me totally different than I expected he would have. The relationship of the young lady and I lasted a year or so and I rarely think of her these days, but there is something about her father that I cannot forget. He showed me the most excellent way. He showed me the way of love. In that time of drugs, transcendental meditation, and experimenting with different life styles, the love of a father is what comes to the forefront of my memory. Fifteen years later I myself accepted Jesus Christ and I started to understand where he was coming from. Today I find the words of the apostle Paul to ring true in my heart, and I know that if I “have not love, I am nothing.” I know this because I am from Missouri, and it was shown to me. God continues to love me and do for me what I could not do for myself…………….JRE

“Let us say it again: The universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And we call this pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice.”
A. W. TOZER……….The Pursuit Of God, page 67