By Christ's Wounds We Are Healed

Christ suffered for you,
and left you an example
to have you follow in His footsteps.

He did no wrong;
no deceit was found in His mouth.
When He was insulted,
He returned no insult.

When He was made to suffer,
He did not counter with threats.
Instead, He delivered Himself up
to the One who judges justly.

In His body
He brought your sins to the cross,
so that all of us, dead to sin,
could live in accord with God's will.

By His wounds you were healed.

~ I Peter 2: 21-24

1st Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully know.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

~ New International Version