Are You Growing?

⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
 ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
 ¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
-First Corinthians 13:8-13 (NLT)

Well, we reach the last verses of First Corinthians 13. To be honest, I've never really dug into this chapter like I've done the past few days. I hope and pray that you've grown from this hard look at love. I hope that you'll apply some of this to your life. But wait, it's not over yet.

Verse 8 says, "Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever." Prophecy is defined as "a. An inspired utterance of a prophet, viewed as a revelation of divine will.b. A prediction of the future, made under divine inspiration.c. Such an inspired message or prediction transmitted orally or in writing.*" So prophecy, the inspired predictions of the future, will become useless. So will speaking in unknown languages (some people call it speaking in tongues)  and special knowledge. Isn't these the very things that pit one Christian against another? Isn't these the things that have resulted in so many different churches and denominations that people don't respond to churches anymore? Look at what Paul says about these things: they will become useless! If these will become useless, what will not become useless? Simple, love. True love, like that described in verses 1-7.

Verses 9-10 dig deeper into this statement. "Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless." Our knowledge of things is only partial, it's incomplete. I'd love nothing more than for God to come down and give me the complete outline of what will happen in my life, so that I could see the result of the choices I make today. Wouldn't that be great? Sorry, it's not going to happen. This is what I think Paul is meaning in these verses. I think he is giving us a look at spiritual maturity. When we are babies, we don't know how to love. Our knowledge is partial and incomplete because all we think about is me, me, me. Even when we study Scripture, we'll look at what God is going to do for me. As we grow and mature, we start to love others as God has loved us. When love finally gets the top spot, our attitude focus from me to others. Then, through love, we can come together and grow into the people God wants us to be. Look at verse 11-12, "¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.


Friends, if you don't have love for others, you will never grow in your relationship with Jesus. Are you growing? Or are you stagnant? Think About It. 
(*source: the free dictionary: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/prophecy)