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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ All right, I see Brian, KJ7 PWM. Brian, are you out there on your microphone? Can you talk to us? All right, pick up KJ7 PWM on Utah SDR. Go ahead there, Brian. How are you doing? Okay, I thought I heard you say you're doing okay this morning, Brian. You got a little garbled there. Somebody else came on and blurred you out. But any prayer requests, Brian, go ahead. Okay copy, negative on the Prairie Quest, thank you for that Brian, appreciate you being there. Band's a little long today but it should improve as the sun comes up. Will, KM5F, come back to me. KM5F, yes, and I do have a couple of praises. I remember crew with leukemia. He finally got enough hair to have a haircut after two years. Also, baby Kathy that we were praying for, she was at church yesterday and smiling and giggling and having a baby time. And her folks were both there and they were smiling and a lot less stressed than they had been. but they're going to have an MRI sometime this week on the baby's skin. Yeah, real good. Thank you for that, Will. Okay, so we prayed a long time for Crew, who had leukemia, and he now has grown his hair back, and he had enough hair to have a haircut. So we're praising the Lord for Crew's recovery from leukemia. Praising the Lord for Crew's recovery from leukemia so that he's able to have a haircut. Copy, Jerry? Say again? I didn't copy. All right, and then Baby Cassie that we prayed for was at church on Sunday. Will, remind me of what Baby Cassie's situation was there, if you could, please. That's Hadley, A-A-D-L-E-Y. And they were afraid there was something wrong with her brain. That's why they're going to get the MRI. And she hadn't been very active when they had her at church. But she had like a normal shot maybe yesterday. Can you identify that? Yeah, I'll copy that. Okay, so that's baby Hadley. That's Hotel Alpha Delta Lima Echo Yankee Hadley. Hadley, when she was born, she wasn't very active. They were afraid there was something wrong with her brain. But she seems to be completely normal now and doing well. And they are going to have an MRI on her brain. But in the meantime, she seems to be doing well. So praise the Lord for that. Thank you so much, Will, for those good reports. And we'll be praising the Lord for those. Okay, Jerry, AE-70R, did you copy any of that, or? Negative. Something about locating... Okay, Jerry, I'll try to relay those to you a little later on when the band improves. Jerry, thanks for being there. All right, any other check-ins this morning, please come down with your call time. Okay, it is time for us to get started with the West Coast Bible Study. It's just now 6:00, and we are going to get started. We are in 1 Corinthians 13. And we're going to be looking today at verses 1 through 3. And so what we've been looking at in chapter 12 and 13, and we're going to be looking at in chapter 14, is the issue of spiritual gifts. And we have said that a spiritual gift is a God-given ability for service to other people. So the Spirit of God sovereignly bestows a spiritual gift upon who He wills, And so gifts are sovereignly bestowed. We don't seek gifts. They are given to us by the sovereign choice of the Holy Spirit. Everyone has a spiritual gift, but no one has all of the spiritual gifts. So that's what we saw in Chapter 12. It dealt with the distribution of spiritual gifts to the assemblies. spiritual gifts are distributed sovereignly, they're distributed universally, but they are not distributed so that everyone has them all. And therefore, we have this interdependence upon one another, as was used in the illustration of the human body and the various parts all working together in order for the body to function as a whole. So chapter 12 says, deals with the distribution of spiritual gifts in the assembly. Now, we're moving into chapter 13, and this deals with the limitations of spiritual gifts in the assembly. And what we see is that spiritual gifts are limited in value. They are less important than love. Love is the primary virtue. It is the greatest virtue. And exercising spiritual gifts in the absence of love is useless and worthless. And then, of course, they're limited in duration. Gifts will cease at some point, but love goes on forever. And so we see this contrast set up between spiritual gifts and love. And while spiritual gifts are important, they are limited. They're limited in value, and they are limited in duration. And so, therefore, we should put the primary emphasis on love, even over and especially during the exercise of spiritual gifts. And then, of course, Chapter 14 will deal with the regulation of spiritual gifts in the assembly. So that's where we're at, and what we're going to do today... is we're going to read together 1 Corinthians 13, verses 1 through 3. But before we do that, we want to open in prayer. And so, David, KK7 PDI, could you please open in prayer for us this morning? Copy. People, people, seven, Papa, South India. Let's bow our heads in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we approach your throne of grace, we are grateful, Father, that you have allowed us all the way from our bed of rest to focus upon the most important thing, and that is your word, as we start out a new day in this life. We pray, Father, that as we listen to the study this morning and as we dissect your word, that we can draw the truth, Father, from it and make application in our lives. Be with each one here and expect me for those who are just listening and are not actually partaking in the conversation. We pray that something will be said today that might spur their soul, that might give them the ability to want to move forward in a better knowledge of you and so that they too, all of us, can spend an eternity in heaven with you. be with Max as he narrates this morning's theme with all those around this virtual table. We pray all this in your son Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for that prayer, David. Really appreciate you leading us to the throne of grace. All right, we are in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and I'm going to read here verses 1 to 3. I will be reading out of the King James Version, and we're just going to try to cover these first three verses today. So 1 Corinthians 13, verses 1 to 3, Paul says here, And though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains that have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profits me nothing. All right, and that ends our reading. I want to just point out that this word charity is a translation of the Greek word agape, which is the word for love. And the reason why it was translated charity by the King James translators... is because charity is an act of giving in which you expect nothing in return. So when you give to charity, you expect nothing back. You're giving without any expectation of receiving. And so it is with love. Agape love. You give without any expectation of receiving back. unlike other words for love, like phileo, which has the idea of reciprocation. Agape does not. So that's the reason for using it. All the other translations translate it love, but I just wanted to offer that explanation. They weren't misusing the word. They were trying to express the essence of the non-reciprocal nature of the love that is expressed. All right, this is WB7MX, Net Control for the West Coast Bible Study. Any comments on these first three verses? Please come down with your call sign. AK-6 OK. All right, Jeff, AK-6 OK. Go ahead. Well, isn't it interesting that these verses were what everybody reads at their weddings, including my own back in 1976? We're on 50 years this year. And, boy, everybody just lived by this, Max. Yeah. Yeah, copy that. It was also read at my wedding in 1975. We reached that 50 years. So, Jeff, yes, what a wonderful passage. What a well-known passage. What an important passage. You know, it's interesting that it's placed right in the center of Chapter 12 and Chapter 14 and is the dominant regulating principle of both of those chapters. And it tells us how we are to exercise our gifts and that is with love towards other people. So this section, Jeff, is talking about the necessity of love, and then he's going to talk about the nature of love. What is this love he's talking about in these first three verses? And then finally he'll talk about the eternality of love, the fact that love goes on forever and ever while other things, our temporary love is permanent. So Jeff, you have love in all that you do with your wife. The nature of that love is that it's selfless and puts others first. And then that love is what transcends every problem and every circumstance and every issue. And it is at the pinnacle of your relationship. So Jeff, thanks for sharing that. Any other comments there, Jeff? Go ahead. Well, congratulations on your 51 years. You got us beat. We were married in 1976, the 200th anniversary of the U.S. And you know, as far as love goes, between my wife and I, we are not going to have a big celebration on our 50th. I think we're going to have dinner together. Yeah, copy that. Well, you know, when you've had that many years together, just being in each other's presence is a special occasion. So we didn't have a big celebration either. We, I think, went over to the eastern side of Oregon, and we visited the High Desert Museum, and then we went up to the Painted Hills and just had a really relaxing time, just the two of us together. No big party, and it was a really blessed time. Back to you, Jeff. Sounds great. And you're right, whether you're a believer or not, I would venture to say that probably 80% of the weddings in this country, this verse is spoken. Starting with, of course, love never gives up, love cares more for others than itself, etc. I've read it, every one of them, I just, I think it's very appropriate. And it kind of brings the believers and non-believers together together. at wedding ceremonies. Kind of an equalizer here, right? Everybody gets this. Yeah, well said, Jeff. You know, the scriptures are a blessing to even the unsaved when they obey the principles that they contain. And, you know, obedience to those principles isn't going to save them. Faith in Jesus saves them. But you sure have a lot better outcomes, you know, when you live by the Ten Commandments and when you live by the New Testament exhortations regarding love and selflessness and self-discipline, self-control, all those things. All right, Jeff, great comments. Thank you for that. All right, any other comments on the West Coast Bible Study, please come now. Okay, I think I heard Mark. KJ7PVT, Mark, come ahead. Yeah, you can hear me okay. Max, for me to read, or should I wait? I can hear you fine. Go ahead. Okay, I like the way Paul jumps into this. He doesn't just come out and say, if I have the gift of prophecy, I am like a thousand brass, and then doesn't go this way, not this year, not this year. He takes these gifts to the extreme. that many of us wouldn't even think sometimes, like the very first one here. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all, that word all is a very big thing. And so he stretches that one out to say, and just in case... Somebody might think they're doing just fine. He stretches it beyond what should be. And then he goes further and he says that to each one of them. He says, if I have faith so that I can remove mountains, and that's really a history we're supposed to be able to do. And if I have that faith... I don't know of anybody who's moved a mountain by faith, but even if we have faith to that extent, it still doesn't matter. And so it really echoes what Christ has done for us. We cannot stand on what we've done or what are any of our accomplishments or any of these things. It is, all of that is nothing without love. And so that's just a point. Yeah, Mark, really well said. And thank you for pointing that out. You know, in all three of these verses, verse 1, verse 2, verse 3, he does exactly what you're describing there, which is carry it out to its ultimate extent. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels... "Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned." And you're right, what he does is he takes all of these virtues and activities, which in and of themselves are very good things, he exalts them to the highest possible point, and then he says of all of them, they're nothing. without love. So he's using, you know, almost a hyperbole here where he's taking it, as you said, to its extreme in order to point out the fact that no matter how much you have of this or that or the next thing in terms of abilities or giftedness, or understanding. No matter how eloquent you are, no matter how much understanding you have, no matter how much self-sacrifice you engage in, even if you did the ultimate amount that nobody's ever achieved before and didn't have love, you would be as nothing. So, excellent point there, Mark. And I think the reason why Paul is doing that because he's trying to really grab our attention and say to us, look, this issue of love is super, super important, and it stands at the pinnacle of anything you can ever be or do or accomplish. All right, other comments, please come out. KK7 PDI. David, KK7 PDI, good copy. Go ahead. Thank you, Max. I just wanted to share something with regard to this love that we're supposed to have. Of course, when you look at God, and you look at the definition of God, God is love. That's the definition of His name, of Yahweh, is love. And so when you look at also I had yesterday in the teenage life class that I was teaching a young lady by the name of Lita. And she came into the class with her friend Savannah. And Savannah brought her because she knows that she's from an abusive family. Her father abuses her. And she came and she felt the love that was there in the concern that people had that they were okay with her. for who she was. And out of that, she is so motivated now, she can't wait to come back. And it can be hard to learn more about the love that God has for her. So a Bible study sets that up, and she's so encouraged that there is hope out of an abusive family. This is a love that Christians are supposed to display every day. And when people see that love, it is such an attractive part. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, David, well said, and thank you for sharing that with us. David was talking about a girl named Lita who brought another girl named Savannah to church and came from an abusive home. And Savannah felt a love that was in that home, pardon me, that was in that church, and now she wants to come back. And, you know, I think, David, people remember how we treat them a lot more than they remember what we say to them. And people remember that they were treated well, that they were shown understanding, they were shown acceptance, that they were shown interest. and that people cared about them, that's going to stick with them for a long, long time. And so that's, I think, the point Paul is making here, is that the way we treat people matters so much more than what we say to people. And so I'm glad that Savannah was well treated, and I'm glad that she sees that there's an alternative where there is a place that is not only not abusive, but a place that builds her up and blesses her. And so that's going to really open her heart for the gospel. And so, David, thanks for sharing that practical illustration of how love works and impacts people as they come into the assembly. All right, other comments, please come down. Just a quick follow-up, Max. PDI, go ahead with your follow-up. Thank you. I heard a gentleman, he wrote this book, he's 86 years old, And he wrote a book, and he says something that's really profound. And it goes like this. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Peter P. Le7, Papa Joe, baby, back to you, Matt. Yeah, well said. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so that is a great statement, and I think it's a very true statement. People need to know that we care about them. And so anyway, I just got a text message here from Keith K7NEB. All right, copy that, Keith K7NEB. I'll pick that up during the prayer time. Okay, that's Keith K7NEB. Thanks, Keith, for the text message. Okay, any other comments on this passage, please come down to call center. Okay, I've got a comment I would like to make about verse 1. Since I am a pastor, I do a lot of talking. this really applies to me. In verse 1 it says, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity or love, I become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." And what Paul is really saying to those of us who, especially our preachers, is that eloquence without love is worthless. And though Paul had every linguistic tool and every linguistic talent, that was available. Every spiritual gift that involved communication, Paul spoke in tongues, and he also had the gift of prophecy. He was also an apostle, and so he also had the gift of exhortation, and so Paul was a communicator. He wrote half the New Testament and evangelized the known world. Here's a guy who talked a lot, and yet he says that no matter what level or degree of eloquence I have, if I don't have love, my preaching is nothing more than a loud clatter in a junkyard. It's just an irritating noise. And so the point he's making here is that the greatest truth said in the greatest way will accomplish nothing if they're not spoken in love. And that's why elsewhere he said in Ephesians, I think it's 415, speak the truth in love. And in that context, we grow up into Christ in all things. And so really, you know, a simple statement said with concern, with compassion, with kindness, with love is going to go a lot further than the greatest theological truths uttered in a cold and an indifferent and detached fashion. Now, Paul's not putting down eloquence here. Eloquence is important. Every person should study to be a better communicator and learn how to say things in a better way. But what he's saying here is that love has to saturate, it has to permeate, it has to characterize all that we do. And what that really means is that when we say things to people, we're also willing to stand beside them and help them bear the burden of what we taught them and give them the resources and provide them with the helping hand they need in order to carry that out. It's one thing to give out an order to someone. It's another thing to say, okay, here's what you need to do, and I will help you do it. I remember there were times when my mom said, you need to clean your room. And then she would come in and help me clean the room, right? And so she gave out direction, she gave instruction, but then she also provided assistance. And I think that's one reason why pastor-teacher is always connected together. You never see the gift of pastoring without being connected to the gift of teaching. Thank you. because as you teach people, you also got to come alongside and shepherd them through that process of not only understanding, but also carrying those things out. All right, WB7MAX here looking for comments, so please come down with your call for me. K2KJX. George, K2KJX, come ahead. Yeah, your signal is great now. I kind of grew up in a unique home. My dad died of a brain tumor when I was two. And so my mother raised us. And she didn't have a lot of great skills of parenting, which I still struggle with our relationship. But anyway, her biggest things were for me. was ridicule and punishment. And I was a fidgety kid and highly sensitive. And she would also say, well, if you love me, you guys would clean the house, me and my sister. And so it was a struggle for me. And I'm kind of opening my open kimono here. But anyway, it kind of was the other side of your mom helping you clean the room, I think. And that's what kind of caught me off. with that, but yeah, it was a struggle for me as a kid, and I still struggle with my relationship with my mother, but I guess I'll just end it there. K2KJX. Yeah, George, thank you for sharing that, and you know, you bring up a really important point, and that is that love is never to be used as a tool of manipulation. It's to be used as a tool of ministry. And when it's used as a club, when it's used to extort things out of people, it becomes something abusive. And there is perverted love. And abusers will pervert the doctrine of love and the practice of love into being something that is destructive, something that is harmful, something that creates wounds. that are not healed for a lifetime. And so typically abusers will say, oh, you know, this is love and I'm loving you. And then, of course, for a lifetime, you struggle with the subject of love because it has this negative connotation. I know that some people were abused by their fathers. And so when they think of a heavenly father, they tend to project their own experience with their own earthly father into him. And they struggle with having a heavenly father because their earthly father was so terrible. And so if you've been abused and that abuse has been labeled as love, that's a hard mountain to climb to be able to put that away and put that aside and to understand the true nature of love and become a loving person yourself. And so, George, thank you for sharing that. I know that's painful, but I want to just encourage you, brother, that that's not love, okay? That was labeled love, but love is not manipulative. Love is not abusive. Love is not wounding or injuring. Love builds up. And as we're going to see in this expression tomorrow, we're going to go through this list in verses 4 through 7. And one of the things we see there right off the get-go, George, in verse 4, love is kind. And so, you know, it sounds like you weren't dealt with kindness, and that's unfortunate, and I'm sorry for that experience that you went through. But what we've got to do is look away from human examples, and we've got to look to the divine example of Paul and Jesus and our Heavenly Father, where He so loved the world that He gave. He didn't love the world in such a way that he manipulated it. So, George, thanks for sharing. I'm sorry for your experience. And I know you've overcome that in many ways, but I think you echo a lot of the struggles of a lot of the people on this Bible study who have experienced those kinds of things. All right, WB7MAX here looking for more comments. Please come in. Okay, I'm sorry. Bye, Yankee. Okay, I think we had a double there. First of all, we had a Wilkin like 5 Foxtrot and then back out off of 5 Yankee. So, Wil, PM5F, you go first. I think that discussion was pretty much a definition of narcissism, PM5F. Yeah, narcissism, you know, Wil brings up that word. Narcissus was a Greek mythological god. who saw her reflection in a pond one day and became so enamored of her own beauty, she just sat there until she was almost dead. And so narcissism arises from that Greek mythology, and it's a term that is used for a perverse self-love. A narcissist is marked by three things. Number one, they're marked by lying. They're constant liars. And number two, they have no empathy for the feelings of other people. They're highly sensitive about the way you treat them, but they have no care, no empathy whatsoever for the impact of their actions and words on others. And then thirdly, they love power and manipulation. And so they're always trying to come across either with love-bombing or with abuse. to try to get other people to do what they want them to do, because for them, the ultimate rush is having power over other people and being able to control and manipulate them through fear, intimidation, deceit, love-bombing, all those kinds of things. And so narcissism comes a different degree. Not everybody is a full-blown narcissist who has that label. But it's a character defect that we need to be aware of and understand so that we don't allow people to manipulate us. And that's a big subject, Will, but thank you for bringing that up. Okay, and that brings us then to Beck, Alphaple 5 Yankee. Beck, please go ahead. Roger, thank you. Something that's bothered me when I was a child especially, now that I'm older not so much, but... Every time I hear the words, "You have to honor your mother and your father," I had an abusive childhood with a mother that was schizophrenic and was beat constantly rather than spanked or scolded. And I've always questioned and went crazy in my mind God, how am I supposed to honor my mother and my father when they treat me this way? And I still go through that in my mind. How can you honor every time you say, and I mean it, when you say you're supposed to honor your mother and your father, I think to myself, how wrong was I to not do that when in my heart of hearts I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to honor them. You know, Beth, you bring up a really important point there, and I think the important point is this, is that, you know, in the military, they say you respect the office and not the man. You salute the office, not the man. So you may have a commanding officer in the military that you absolutely despise who is a real loser and a complete creep. But nevertheless, he's your superior officer. And so you're required to salute the individual and to carry out the lawful orders of that individual, even though that individual has treated you very poorly. And I think that's the parallel here that nobody's asking you. And the Bible certainly does not ask you to give your mother honor for evil behavior towards you. However, she is your mother. She has that position. She has that office. She has that standing. And so what it means to honor someone who is abusive is not that you justify the abuse, not that you cover up the abuse. but that you recognize that this person stands in a relationship with me as a mother, and therefore I need to return good for evil. And so this person did you a lot of evil. Well, how do you honor her? You don't justify the evil, and you don't explain it away. And you don't cover it up. But what you do is you return good for evil. So, for example, in her old age, if she needs some financial help, you know, you give her some financial help. If she needs help with fixing the car, you know, you go fix the car. And so by returning good for evil, that's how you would honor her. So no one's asking you to justify what she did or to defend it or to pretend like it didn't happen. But just return good for evil, and that's how you honor her. Back to you there, Meg. Okay, well, and I did the right thing because even though she was mean to me and abusive, and I had to listen to after I did the brake job on her car. "Oh, so did you fix the brake job so I'm going to go out and hit my brakes and get in an accident and kill myself?" I still did the right thing. Oh, thanks Pastor Max, South Alpha 5 Yankee. Yeah, amen, you did do the right thing, Beck, and so you just have to commit her to the Lord and trust Him to get justice, which He will, and you just continue to... I mean, the Bible says, look, love your enemies, right? And so what it means to love your enemies is not let them take advantage of you or not accept the abuse they heap upon you, but it does mean that, you know, you give a soft answer. It does mean that you pray for them, and it does mean that you return good for evil. So, yeah, Becky, you did the right thing. Good for you. All right, other comments, please come down. KJ7, TVT. KJ7, TVT, go ahead. Yeah, yeah, man, it's a really good, uh, that we're going through here because it really is where we live. Um, I, I... *Motorcycle engine noise* I was concerned, but I had the retina specialist tell me that there was nothing that they could do for me, in the way of glasses or anything else, that my retina had to be fixed. I had to see if mine needed a little, like new glasses or something. That's when I found out that I was blind and I didn't know it. And I found out with that message that the condition went further and further. I couldn't read. I couldn't see anything that I looked at. I couldn't even look at it. I couldn't see anything because it was completely messed up. It got so bad when I was driving. *Rainbow And that's all dangerous. And the reason I came here is that through all of this, I am on my own. I am on my own. So now I'm going to be trying to figure out how to use these guys to create some water and ground and you can use them to get you through that. That's a better way to get through. Just think of trying to get a box and then learn to do what it takes. Yeah, I mean, it's a good thing that I didn't die like that. I don't know what happened. I don't know why. When I see these kinds of things in people, where I used to say, why can't they see? And they're acting and they do whatever it is that they're told. They are blind and they don't know. Maybe they were raised the same way and they're still reacting as we all do in terms of Our response to bad behavior or the way people are treated, and for now we've brought up the laborers and their affections over here for a long time. But the compassion, the work is of compassion. And with compassion I think we can begin to overcome these things because compassion on a huge industry. to say that and to pull it down to a halt. We understand that we can now have a reaction to that and to report that they're in a place of not being able to see. And when even they think that they can see everything, there's clearly lots of where's. But I think you get my general point, K27PBP. Yeah, Mark, thank you for bringing that out. Yeah, when people are abusive towards us, sometimes they don't even see themselves or hear themselves. Because being abusive is how they were raised, and so they don't know any other way to interact with people other than with echoing and reflecting the abuse that they themselves received. And that's why we need to work at breaking that cycle and not echoing or reflecting the negative traits of our parents while reinforcing the positive traits that they had. So, Mark, thanks for that. Yeah, sometimes people are blind. That's the way they're treating others, and they don't even see it. And so we have to pray that God would open their eyes so that they would see what they're doing. And, you know, it's interesting, Mark, along your analogy there, God struck Paul blind so that he could see with new eyes. And, you know, the blindness makes you appreciate a whole new perspective, the work that blindness has rendered. So real good. All right, we are running out of time. Any other comments on our three versus? Please come down with your call sign. That makes sense.... I just want to say I'm enjoying it. Thank you. Okay, station said you were enjoying it, that there was a double there. Could you give me your call sign again, please? Okay Joe, real good copy. Heard everything you said, it's just you got doubled on and that's why your callsign got covered up. But glad you're enjoying it Joe. We really appreciate you being here from Alaska and we're looking forward to hearing your comments and communicating with you more. Alright, Kevin, KB7ZXN, go ahead. Yeah, thank you, Max. KB7 is out of the center. Join the comments and discussion on the text here. You know, one of the things, a couple of things just to keep in mind, I think, with this is with God, you cannot really separate God's love from God's grace. And they just go hand in hand. And when we are saved by God's grace, it is also in hand in hand with his love. When we are indwelled and if we're guided by the Spirit, that love, that grace lives in us and should live in us. as we walk daily with Him. In fact, there's no greater example of this than Christ Himself. And in John 34 and 35, He says, A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another even as I have loved you. And by this they will know you are my disciples. This is an identifying characteristic of a believer, of a Christian, is that we would have God's love and God's grace living in us. And that would be extended to others. And Paul here, in the context of these tough things that he's dealing with, with the Corinthian church, I mean, these are some pretty tough sins and misunderstandings that Paul is dealing with. But he's dealing with it in love. And you have to have discipline with love. You have to have structure with love. You have to have the truth. with love. And of course, we know Christ is the truth. But, you know, on one hand, it's the guiding principle. It's the identifying mark of a true believer. You know, it's interesting, Paul in Galatians deals with different issues. He deals with legalism there and the law creeping in and trying to pollute the gospel with adding the law to it. But again, you see that he deals with that in love and emphasizes the fruit of the fruit. of the Spirit in chapter 5 of Galatians. But this is an identifying mark. This is how the world will know us as His disciples, is God's love and grace that lives within us, not denying the truth, abiding in the truth, but at the same time, it's not the church buildings, the steeples, the pageantry, whatever it might be that identify, you know, people might have a picture of in their minds of what a church is. but we are the church and this is one of the identifying characteristics that we are Christ. KB 7 is an example. Yeah, you know, Kevin, you make a really important point, and that is we've got to lead with love. You know, Jesus said, as you pointed out, love one another as I have loved you. The first fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 is love, and then after that, joy, peace, etc. And so the first thing people should bump into when they bump into us is they should bump into our love. And while, as you well said, Kevin, truth is never to be divorced from love. A love has to lead. And so when people first come into contact with us, there needs to be this awareness. This person loves me. This person cares about me. This person is genuinely interested in me. This person is kind. He's compassionate. He's patient. And he's interested in my struggles and wants to come alongside and help me. Well, if that's the first thing they run into, which is what they should, then when we start to express truth over the process of time about this or that, they're willing to accept it because it came in a context of leading with love. So, Kevin, excellent point there. All right, we are way out of time. We need to stop here. I just want us to understand these three verses real clearly. Verse 1, eloquence without love is worthless. Verse 2, understanding without love is useless. We can know it all and still be nothing. It's far easier to be orthodox than it is to be loving. And you remember the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, they had left their first love. They're very orthodox. but they weren't loving. And then, of course, thirdly, self-sacrifice without love in verse 3 is valueless. Love is always self-sacrificing, but self-sacrifice does not always come from love. Sometimes it comes from people wanting to draw attention to themselves. So we look at Ananias and Sapphira, you know, who were very loving in the gift that they gave, but it wasn't proceeding out of love. it was proceeding out of self-importance and a desire for praise from others. So the greatest liberality towards others and the greatest self-denial towards others, if it's wrongly motivated, is also meaningless and useless. So those are the three grand truths in these three verses. Eloquence without love is worthless. Understanding without love is useless. And so sacrifice without love is valueless. All right, so I think we've all understood this morning that we've got to lead with love. Whether we speak, whether we express truth, or whether we serve, it all has to be done in love. Now, today... We've looked at the necessity of love. Tomorrow, we're going to look at the nature of love, and we're going to go through verses 4, 5, 6, and 7. And there's a big list there, and I want you to think about what each of those words mean and what that looks like in the way in which you treat other people or in the way in which you don't treat other people. It's interesting that there are seven positive statements, here's what love does, but there's eight negative statements, here's what love never does. And so love is marked not only by what we do, but also by what we don't do in the way in which we deal with other people. So that's where we are at. We've got a couple of extra prayer requests here. Jerry, 87ER, how are you hearing me? Over. Hi. You just came up to about an eight. Okay, all right. So I want to catch you up on our prayer request before you lead us in prayer. I think you've already got Dan, Infix T&I. We're praising the Lord for his recovery from COVID. Over. Right. And then the little Q-like five foxtrot had asked us to pray a long time for Crew, the little boy Crew who had leukemia. And he went into remission. And he now grew enough hair to have a haircut. And so we're just praising the Lord for Cruz's recovery and coming back full circle from his leukemia. That's another praise there. Jerry, go ahead. That is wonderful. Okay, and then we prayed for a baby named Hadley. That's H-A-D-L-E-Y, Hadley. And when Hadley was born, there was concern about maybe some brain issues. Yes. But she seems to be doing real well with her brain. So that's a praise as well. These are all praises, Jerry. We're praising the Lord for Hadley and that her brain seems to be working well. Okay, and then finally we've got another praise here, and this is from Keith, K7NEB. And Keith says, we just want to thank the Lord. for the family that visited us last week in Idaho for the first time. They made it safely back to Ohio. So Keith had asked us to pray for a family who was traveling out from Ohio to visit them. Well, they got there safely. They got back home safely. So that's another praise. So just a whole list of praises here. Jerry, go ahead. Okay, real good. Well, that catches us up with our list, and so go ahead and lead us in prayer there, Jerry. Let us pray. Almighty God, we send you glory, Lord, grateful for our ability to hear each other and to study your word. Let us pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. As we begin this, Dave, we ask you to be with Mike, W7TWO. Give my share of identity with Stalin. And credit cards open in your name. Pray for the problems to be properly resolved. And Lord, whoever stole it, uh... Let's watch what's with them accountable. Roger, WB7D said, "Elvis, like Daylene, has stage 1 breast cancer. Lord, we ask for complete healing." Oh, WB722H, "We pray for healing for his son John from cancer." Then, Al's neighbor, Lucas, who suddenly lost his hearing. He needs a diagnosis and the cause for treatment plan. He prays the Lord for healing Mark Rapp from cancer. Thank you, dear Lord. Rick, both fingers. He's a Christian. Malignant melanoma. Now receiving immunotherapy treatment to stimulate his T-cells to fight the cancer. He's struggling with loss of appetite. He needs to sell his business. And we pray for a buyer to come and purchase this. And Lord, may those T-cells destroy that malignant melanoma. Doc, W6RLJ. We pray for health issues for his wife, Marilith. She is currently organizing a medical mission that will go to the South Pacific at the end of February. Lord, be with her, help her find her problem with her health issues, and give her healing, please. Amen. Carol 1517 Field, Amy, a Christian. Recent breast cancer surgery. We pray for recovery. And for Joanne, healing from shingles. Bring on the cyclone there. Thank the Lord for his goodness, mercy, and grace to each one of us and to the gift of his son, Jesus Christ, amen. Dan, in sick care, he's recovering from COVID, and we praise the Lord for that. He implies this. Fruit with leukemia is in remission. Enough hair for a haircut, and dear Lord, we give you thanks for fruit. That's what you're for. Hadley, doing well with her brain working well. Thank you, Lord. Yeah, 27NAV, thanks for family travel, back home spaces. Lord, we also ask you to be with our country. Help kill the evil that seems to persist. Bring back goodness and decency. And we ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, Jerry. Thank you so much for that wonderful prayer. This is WB7MAX, Net Control for the West Coast Bible Study. I want to thank all the stations who checked in this morning and those who stood by to give us a clear operating frequency. We meet here seven days a week at 6 a.m. in order to read the Scriptures, understand their meaning, message, and application. And then pray for grace and mercy to live out what we learned and for God to meet the needs of those that are in our circle of fellowship. I'll be returning this frequency now to regular amateur use. This is WB7MAX. Clear and standing by. George, K2KJX, are you still on frequency? Okay, not hearing from George. I'll just go ahead and text him. Alright, WB7MAX is clear and standing by. Any stations want to talk, come ahead. Alpha Alpha 5 Yankee with this morning's joke. Alright, back. Alpha Alpha 5 Yankee, go ahead. We are ready. What is the cutest creature in the sea? What is the cutest creature in the sea? Well, a sea urchin has to be the ugliest because it's an urchin. I don't know. Go ahead. A cuttlefish. A cuttlefish, yeah. C-U-T-T-L-E, C-U-D-D-L-E, right. Good pun there. Yeah, a cuttlefish is like an octopus. It's like a squid. And anyway, that's a good one, Beck. Thank you for that. A cuttlefish. You wouldn't want one of those cuddling with you, Beck, wrapping those arms around you. I think the giant squid is kind of like in the cuttlefish family. Over. Roger. I had no idea what a cuttlefish was. Thanks for that. Yeah, yeah. So it's spelled C-U-T-T-L-E, cuttlefish. And so it's a play on words, cuttlefish. Got it. But, yeah, they are like a squid. You know, they've got a head and then they've got arms that... They used to capture their prey much like an octopus, but they don't nearly have the intelligence or the capabilities of an octopus But squids can get huge You know 20-foot tentacles and that kind of thing in a deep ocean So they've actually been known to like attack whales and that kind of thing. So they're nothing to fool around with over Roger well, they say they used to attack ships back in the old days. Oh Yeah, whether that's true or not, I don't know. There's lots of stories that arise out of the wailing days, but nevertheless, thanks, thanks, Beck. Appreciate that. How are you guys doing? Oh, we're doing good. It's just another day, Roger. Copy that, copy that. Well, it's another Monday, so another week to serve the Lord, so real good. All right, Beck, anybody else want to jump in here? Come now with your call sign. K2KJF. George, K2KJF. Yeah, I just wanted to contact you and say it's your turn to pray tomorrow. Are you ready for that? Over. Tomorrow, my day, K2KJF? Yeah. We kind of operate on a rotation here. And so we do Scott, and then we do Al, and then we do Jerry. We do me, we do you. So anyway, I was going to have you pray tomorrow, and then I would follow you. So if that doesn't work, no worries. I can fill in for tomorrow if you can't be here. Over. I know. I'll be here every day, every morning I can. So I'll be ready for tomorrow, KCJJ. All right, yeah. So just get on the website, look at the Tuesday prayer request, and then, of course, we'll take prayer requests during the study. So anyway, that's what's going on there. George, go ahead. Okay, yeah, a quick follow-up. You know, when I found in Psalms that God is a father to the fatherless, I clung on to that for most of my adult life. And that was my most important thing they did. Yeah, amen. God is a father to the fatherless, yep. And, you know, not being raised with a dad is really a tough, tough situation for a young man. And I really feel for you, but I know that God is able to heal those things And that is a wonderful passage. I've thought about that many times, because, you know, a lot of people do have dads, but their dads have rejected them. And so they have to turn to the Heavenly Father as their real father. So I know that when I became a Christian, Boy, that really kind of ended my relationship with my own dad, because he was pretty furious that I was a Christian. And so, you know, through the years, you know, I had to continue to honor him and do him good and treat him well, like I talked with Beck about. But, yeah, George, great verse. Really glad you're applying spiritual principles. to personal situations. Well done there, George. - Okay, Roger, Roger, and I'll be clear after this, but I try to be a good dad to my kids. They all know my sign up pass, but I try to call them with confidence on our text. and they probably think I text them too much. But anyway, just to stay engaged with them, because when I was in the Navy, I was gone all the time. So I didn't get to see them a lot, you know. But yeah, I try to be doing that to them also. Over. Thank you. Yeah, well, I'm glad you broke the cycle there, George, and that is so important. And that's what we do as Christians is that we break the cycle of the destructive behavior of previous generations. Neither of my parents were Christians, and so I raised my kids considerably differently than I was raised. And I did that self-consciously, and I treated my kids considerably differently than my mom and my dad treated me. in an effort to break that cycle and to restore a proper balanced home where there's love and discipline in their proper proportions and in their proper way. All right, George, we'll go to K2KJX73 to you. We'll talk to you tomorrow. WB7MX, clear and standing by.. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you