Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
What I'm getting at is best shared by a friend of mine who said, "if I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 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 have gained nothing."
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
Sadly, we have become deceived and gullible as children, embracing the contrary, and in your defense, a 99% result of deliberate and hidden distraction, and 1% pride, avoiding the help needed, because of said deception, believing lies as truth, and truth as lies.
How can I defend this position? What's to say that I am not part of the problem?
Again, my trustworthy friend says, "When you follow the desires of your sinful nature (believing lies as truth and truth as lies), the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these."
He goes on to say, when we stand on truth, agreeing to disagree, while loving all and judging none, "the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!"
So why then, or better still, how can we insist on ignoring these latter two paragraphs?
It appears as though the battle is already lost, 99% to 1% in favor, and yet, my friend also says, “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”
The mountain, metaphorically speaking, is the gamut of challenges, or giants that come against you in your lifetime that under normal circumstances are simply not possible with man in his own strength, but with the help of the living God, Jesus Christ, in whom the world has been manipulated into believing that He is the problem, the lie, rather than the truth, 'Nothing is, nor would be impossible for you to accomplish.'
PS:
Invest in yourself! Invest in truth!
Consider the purchase of one or all four Holy Spirit led authored books HERE or HERE addressing 'How & why we must connect with Jesus' * 'Man gives us religion - God gives us truth' * 'Lesson to live by' (powerful on grace & gratitude) * and 'Super hero's for Jesus' as a grass roots learning tool - awesome for children as well as new Christians.
I thank you ... and I thank you, Jesus, amen and amen!