What If...Love was central

This week’s sermon was on I Corinthians 13, entitled: “What If…Love was Central”
Here are some random quotes and thoughts in relation to I Cor 13.
Remember, it wasn’t written about a wedding! The context is Paul writing to the Corinthians about how to life together in community. He proposes a deeper love than the superficial types of love that pervade our daily living. “Love” is about being engaging in caring for others and the real aspects of daily living.
Dostoevsky’s Father Zossima in “The Brothers Karamazov” says, “Love in reality is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.” This is the “deep” love that Paul wants us to engage in—the down and dirty love of daily living, not the gushy, warm ‘stuff’ that we dream of in fantasies where everything is happy and easy. That is not life—real life means that true love is often hard, risky and difficult.
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Psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan maintains that "love begins when a person feels another person's need to be as important as his own." Others expand on this and have said: life itself begins when a person feels another person's need is as important as his own.
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“The beautiful thing about true love is that it not only has a long fuse, but it also has a short memory.” (James Merritt)

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“The shape of God’s love in us is forever changing throughout all of our lives. The shape of God’s love in us never stays the same.” ( Edward F. Marquart)
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This type of “love” reminds us that love is as near to each one of us as someone who needs us. And there is always someone who needs us.
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Some Youtube links that are interesting to think about related to I Cor 12 and 13. They are listed to the left also. I used this one in last week’s sermon:

Me Church>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGEmlPjgjVI&feature=related

I used this one: Me worship songs, in the sermon this week on “love”—pointing out that this isn’t the kind of love Paul is talking about>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9dvVp0Nxjo&NR=1