Thursday, February 27, 2014

"chari-TEA"


And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:13, KJV)
Chari-TEA! It's all about love. The Greek for charity is "agape" translated as unconditional love. Here in these verses from 1 Corinthians 13, one clearly gets the idea that love is NOT about self.
"Self" often acts for its own profit, and seeks its own with a "puffed up" ego. According to this chapter, charity does none of these. Longsuffering and kindness are factors of this love. Charity bears all things with hope and endurance.

Without love, mankind is nothing.

It's a covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one’s fellow man.
Dr. Constable dubs the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians as the supremacy of love. "Love is the most fundamental and prominent of these graces. The love in view is God's love, that He has placed in the believer by the indwelling Spirit, that should overflow to God and others." (p. 153)
An over flow of my morning tea opened my eyes to the reality of a cuppa chari-TEA. Overflowing of love is a good thing.
Disclaimer, I added a little tea to the saucer so that you could see it & get the idea.
Not the first time such a spill has taken place---but now it has meaning.
Sipping a cuppa chari-TEA allows love for God and others to spill over into life, just as the saucer for my morning brew caught the overflow and drips from my cup. That's what our charity needs to do......splash all over others and cover them with love.