Been meditating on this a lot over the last week. We used it as the base of our worship last Friday, what an amazing piece of theology. Paul spends 1 Corinthians 12 talking about spiritual gifts and ministry and great stuff like that but then he takes everything the modern church seems to value so highly and hits us with this

1 Corinthians 12:31
…But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all…

1 Corinthians 13

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. (WOW!) If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Pretty challenging stuff! Paul tells us that pretty much whatever we DO is irrelevant without love. Without love, we may as well not bother at all! And in case we were ambiguous or unsure he goes on to define LOVE as God sees it

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Try reading that again, but this time substitute the word LOVE with the word GOD. After all God IS Love...

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Future stuff here, to summarise; one day, when Jesus returns, or when we die, when we sit in God's presence, all this spiritual stuff like 'Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages' is going to be kind of irrelevant,, after all, who needs prophecy when you're sitting at the feet of Jesus? But he finishes by saying...

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

what more can you add to that?