Love

Good Morning! 

What a week and weekend we have experienced.  We began the week with temperatures that felt like Spring had arrived … followed by torrential rain … followed by snow and culminating in an earthquake in Lilburn yesterday morning.  Up here in Cleveland, we had about six inches of snow Saturday … and it was beautiful.  But it did mean that we canceled morning church services so that no one would get hurt.  Travel Saturday was very difficult – I am told.  I didn’t venture out.  Someone who visited my home once asked what I would do if it snowed since my driveway is almost “straight up”.  My response … I am retired, so I stay home. And I did.

Fortunately, the snow on the roads was mostly gone by early Sunday and I could get up and down the drive without a problem.  I hope all of you were safe and sound throughout the weekend.

The verses of the day on Biblegateway come from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth.  I took a quick look and decided we needed to see the whole chapter …

1 Corinthians 13 English Standard Version (ESV)

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. 2 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. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 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. 12 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.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes:

1.     1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast

2.     1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing

Paul reminds each one of us that Jesus’ commandment (see John 13:34-35) is that we love one another.  I think Jesus is talking about genuine love for one another … love that goes beyond just being an acquaintance or being a friend … but being willing to devote one’s self to another. And that is not an easy task … because look what one has to give up:

·         Impatience – I have to be willing to wait on my brother or sister to get to where I might be spiritually

·         Aggravation – I have to actually practice being kind … uggghh

·         Envy and boastfulness - I have to let my actions speak for themselves and not toot my own horn

·         Arrogance and rudeness – I have to be able to see myself as being on the same plane as my brothers and sisters … after all, I am just a sinner saved by the grace of God as are all.

·         Insisting in having all things my way – even though I always think I know best.

·         Irritableness and resentment – I forfeit the “right” to get irritated at my fellow believer or to resent what he or she has that I don’t.

·         Rejoicing when another is wrong – this works out well when I am wrong …doesn’t it.

But look what I gain:

·         Love bears all things – I see people in a different light … and care about what they need

·         Love believes all things – I see possibilities instead of fallacies

·         Love hopes all things – I give my brothers and sisters second and third chances hoping they will succeed.  I hope they will do the same for me.

·         Love endures all things – I don’t give up … because God has never given up on me

Listen … I don’t understand it all … but I know this one thing … God’s love is forever … and so should my love for you, my brothers and sisters, be.

God walk with each of us this good day, granting us peace, love, joy and hope.

Agape’

Mr. Jim

  

Prayer:  Thank You, dear Father, for reminding me of how much You love me and how much I should love my fellow believers. In Jesus’ Name … Amen.

Scripture for today:  1^st Corinthians 13