God is love. The love that is expressed through us via the Holy Spirit is that same love. It's God's characteristics. How much of a privilege it is to be a vessel for the characteristics of a perfect God. We can perform miracles and use spiritual gifts in the name of Jesus, but what is it worth when we aren't loving as God loves us? What is any work worth if the intimacy of God isn't moving through us? When we are intimate with the Holy Spirit, there is a natural overflow of spiritual gifts that changes lives, that expand His kingdom, keeps us closer to Him, and sustains joy. His love never fails, so why would we hold onto anything else? Live in the Holy Spirit constantly, so righteousness isn't a burden, and the love of God overflows with joy.
1 Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And
if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have
not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,t but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When
I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned
like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For
now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
