Daily Devotion – January 27, 2022 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
13:1 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.
13:2 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 do not have love, I am nothing.
13:3 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.
13:4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
13:6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
13:7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
13:8 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.
13:9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
13:10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
13:11 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.
13:12 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.
13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
This is a passage of the Apostle Paul’s writing that has become famous, even put to music, because it is so often read at weddings to describe the love we wish we all could experience. Love is patient and kind, it says. Love doesn’t need to have its own way, it says. And love doesn’t keep a record of the other person’s mistakes. When you’re on the threshold of marriage, it’s the kind of love you hope you’re getting into. It also implies that such deep and forgiving love is mature and not childish.
I wonder if all relationships were meant to unfold in this spirit of love. Wouldn’t it be great if that’s the way neighbors treated one another? If that’s the way the folks in your favorite grocery store treated you? If that’s the way you treated the person whose desk is nearest to yours at work?
If God is love, and, if faith, hope, and love abide, but the greatest of these is love, then this sort of love – deep, forgiving love – God-like love – should be able to be found across all the earth. How are you, how am I contributing to this sort of love every day, in all of our relationships? And where in our lives are we NOT contributing to it, or even eroding it or taking it away?
Looking at life bluntly, I can see places I am not adding to love. I can see places I may even be subtracting to love? If love is our calling from God, we perhaps should find a way, starting today, to add to the circulation of love in the world. Where might I start doing that? How about you?
Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Help us to see opportunities to add to the circulation of love in the world, for we love because you first loved us. Amen.
