{"id":55,"date":"2005-02-23T20:25:00","date_gmt":"2005-02-23T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.markporthouse.net\/?p=55"},"modified":"2005-05-02T16:49:41","modified_gmt":"2005-05-02T15:49:41","slug":"motivation-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=55","title":{"rendered":"Motivation and Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\">I been reflecting a lot recently on my motivation and was reminded of this paraphrase. LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\"><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\">If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and the Church, but I fail to ask about your needs and then help you, I&#8217;m simply making a lot of empty religious noise.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\"><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\">If I graduate from theological seminary and know all the answers to questions you&#8217;ll never even think of asking, and if I have all the degrees to prove it and if I say I believe in God with all my heart, and soul and strength, and claim to have incredible answers to my prayers to show it, but I fail to take the time to find out where you&#8217;re at and what makes you laugh and why you cry, I&#8217;m nothing.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\"><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\">If I sell an extra car and some of my books to raise money for some poor starving kids somewhere, and if I give my life for God&#8217;s service and burnout after pouring everything I have into the work, but do it all without ever once thinking about the people, the real hurting people-the moms and dads and sons and daughters and orphans and widows and the lonely and hurting-if I pour my life into the Kingdom but forget to make it relevant to those here on earth, my energy is wasted, and so is my life.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\"><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\">Here is what love is like&#8211;genuine love. God&#8217;s kind of love. It&#8217;s patient. It can wait. It helps others, even if they never find out who did it. Love doesn&#8217;t look for greener pastures or dream of how things could be better if I just got rid of all my current commitments. Love doesn&#8217;t boast. It doesn&#8217;t try to build itself up to be something it isn&#8217;t. Love doesn&#8217;t act in a loose, immoral way. It doesn&#8217;t seek to take, but it willingly gives. Love doesn&#8217;t lose its cool. It doesn&#8217;t turn on and off. Love doesn&#8217;t think about how bad the other person is, and certainly doesn&#8217;t think of how it could get back at someone. Love is grieved deeply (as God is) over the evil in this world, but it rejoices over truth.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\"><\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-family:courier new;\">Love comes and sits with you when you&#8217;re feeling down and finds out what is wrong. It empathizes with you and believes in you. Love knows you&#8217;ll come through just as God planned, and love sticks right beside you all the way. Love doesn&#8217;t give up, or quit, or diminish or go home. Love keeps on keeping on, even when everything goes wrong and the feelings leave and the other person doesn&#8217;t seem as special anymore. Love succeeds 100 percent of the time. That, my friend, is what real love is!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I been reflecting a lot recently on my motivation and was reminded of this paraphrase. LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and the Church, but I fail to ask about &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/?p=55\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sundaypapers.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}