Devotion - Monday, October 21

I have been making the wedding circuit this month.  Two weddings in the last three weeks.  Lots of celebration, many reasons to give God thanks.

At neither of these weddings did we read I Corinthians 13.  For that I am glad.  The so-called "love chapter" in Paul's letter to the church in Corinth loses much of its punch when we align it with the limited and closed-in-upon-itself type of a love that makes a marriage thrive.  The love of I Corinthians 13 speaks to all of us, not merely those who are in a committed life-long relationship.

Bishop Yoos spoke at our gathering last Wednesday about love.  He encouraged us to think about the way in which we express love.  "What is your love language?" he asked us.  Some show love by offering gifts, others by being dependable.  Some show their love by offering a listening ear, others by offering a comforting hug.

Loving others is a choice we make, but it is also a directive from God as to how we are to live our lives.  Love becomes the expression of our awareness that we have been loved by God and posses an abundance which we are now able to share.

Pastor Chris

1 Corinthians 13

The Gift of Love

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogantor rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.