Blessing from 1 Corinthians 13

Friends - it has been some time since I have posted a devotional. The following was used in my sermon this morning. It's from "Romans" Volume 4, by Dr. James Montgomery Boice. I hope it is a blessing to you!

Dan Todd

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Love - 1 Corinthians 13 [NKJV]
1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5. does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6. does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 11. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1. Love is patient - this is the normal attitude of love.
* Because people are difficult - exasperating - and slow - love understands this and so waits patiently.
* It knows that God is patient and that He has been wonderfully patient with us.

2. Love is kind - the world is filled with hurting - suffering people.
* Love knows this and does what it can to help - uplift - serve - encourage - and otherwise embrace them in their misery.
* It is quick to speak an encouraging word - quick to offer everyone a willing - outstretched hand.

[The first two descriptions of love have been positive. Here is the first of eight negative statements -saying what love is not - and does not do.]

3. Love does not envy - it is not jealous.
* It is glad when other people win honors - achieve fame - strike it rich - and are praised.
* This is because love knows God and is content with the life God has given.
* Only a believer can be truly happy when others are preferred before himself.

4. Love does not boast.
* The world is filled with boasters - people who in one way or another are calling attention to who they are - how important they are - and how much they have achieved.
* Love does not do this - because love does not think highly of itself and because it is glad when others are exalted.
* A wise man once said - "There is no limit to what a man can achieve if he is not worried about who gets the credit." This is love.

5. Love is not proud - the opposite of pride is humility - and love is humble.
* Love does not have inflated ideas of itself. Love is gracious.

6. Love is not rude.
* The opposite of rudeness is courtesy - and love has good manners.
* It thinks of others - it holds its tongue and waits for others to speak.
* Love listens - love does not dominate a social setting and will not blurt out things that wound another person.

7. Love is not self-seeking.
* The world looks at something and asks - "What's in it for me?"
* Love does not seek for self - because it is not thinking of self.
* Love thinks of the one it loves.
* Jesus did not seek His own advantage when He came to earth to save us.
* Rather - He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant ... he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross. - Phil 2:7-8

8. Love is not easily angered.
* "For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off childhood; in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, [anger] stands alone." - Henry Drummond.
* But love is not easily angered - it does not have a short fuse - it is not irritable - not easily provoked - it is not touchy.
* Love is patient and kind.

9. Love keeps no record of wrongs.
* Some people have a knack for bringing up mistakes we have made and wounds we have inflicted - even decades afterwards.
* Love forgets these wrongs - it does not compile statistics - it is not resentful - it is not vindictive.

10. Love does not delight in evil.
* Love is not amused by wrongdoing - it is not attracted by vice - it does not find trash intriguing - even when it is dressed up for prime time television or published in glossy magazines.
* Dishonest schemes do not please it - love hates wickedness.

11. Love rejoices with the truth [this is the other half of the only two-part description in this paragraph.]
* It shows that the evil Paul is thinking of when he says does not delight in evil is chiefly the evil that tells lies.
* Love loves truth - above all the truth that is God's.
* Love loves the Bible - it delights to speak about it.

[The last four descriptions say what love always does.]

12. Love always protects.
* It always protects the other person - it sides with the weak - it rallies around the one who has been oppressed - attacked - abused - hurt - slandered - or otherwise made a victim.
* Love protects children - because it knows that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these - Matt 19:14.

13. Love always trusts.
* Love is never suspicious - love is not trying to see under the surface or pry out the hidden motives of another.
* Love is not stupid or gullible - but it always thinks the best.
* It is the quality that brings out the best in other people.
* A mother shows love when she tells her struggling son that she believes in him - or her discouraged daughter that she knows she will do well.

14. Love always hopes.
* Love does not stop loving because it is not loved in return or because it is deceived.
* Love hopes for the best - and it forgives not once or even seven times - but seventy times seven.
* Love is not even counting.

15. Love always perseveres.
* Love never gives up - it is unconquerable - indomitable.
* Love can outlast hate and evil and indifference.
* Love can outlast anything.
* Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote - "It is ... the one thing that stands after all else has fallen."