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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
It (love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:7
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Looking for a way of life better than the one you are living?
The Bible would encourage you to turn to love as it is the most excellent way.
Indeed, chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians goes to great lengths to show us the way God expects us to love and it’s only when we love like this that we can be sure we are living the most excellent way.
So far, this is what we have learned.
True love, the kind of love the Lord expects, is shown to another when a person shows patience and kindness while keeping no record of wrongs and rejoicing in the truth. It avoids envy, boasting, pride, dishonoring another, self centeredness, anger, and evil.
When you look at the way you love others, would you give yourself a passing grade? Or maybe the more appropriate question would be...
How would the Lord grade you in the way you love others?
I think I can say with complete confidence that we will always grade well if we allow the Lord to show us how to love through His Word and Spirit.
Speaking of God’s word, it could have stopped talking about love at verse 6 and His people would have had plenty to go on but as we’ll see over the next three days, our Lord still has a lot to tell us. Look again at verse 7:
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Here we find God adding a new layer to the matter of love with four more positive qualities but note the one key word attached to each quality, a key word that ups the ante on loving another properly. For we see the word “always” added to the mix and “always” means always. We are to model these four behaviors constantly, persistently and consistently, without fail. Let’s look at each a little closer:
1. Love always protects.
When you truly love as the Lord desires, you protect the ones He brings to you to love. This is just an expected replication of the way He loves.
Look throughout the scriptures and you will see God watching over His people and keeping them from harm. One place where you seemingly see this mentioned over and over is in the Psalms as David testifies to what God had done for him, shielding him from his enemies who wished him dead.
David was a man after God’s own heart and God rewarded that devotion with security. He expects us to love others likewise in such a way that always protects.
2. Love always trusts.
When you love someone the way the Lord wants you to love, you always trust and never lose faith. Out of love, you always believe in your partner and never lose faith in their ability to work alongside you to form the kind of relationship God desires. In getting to that point, both partners in a relationship need to always trust in the Lord first and never lose faith that He will not only always protect but show them the way to ever trust in one another.
3. Love always hopes.
When we are loving others as God intends, we do so with a constant feeling of hope. We never lose faith because we know the Lord will help guide us to love properly, even if we falter. All we need to do to get back on track is to turn to the Lord and ask Him to help us love as He loves, to love in a way that always holds onto hope and never gives up on someone.
4. Love always perseveres.
The Lord brings us into short and long term relationships in life. In regard to the latter, two people may be connected by love for a very long period of time.
My wife and I are in our thirtieth year together and will celebrate our milestone anniversary in December. That’s a long time to love one another and the good news is that we will have more years ahead, God willing.
To love that long and do it well, one has to know how to persevere, to be committed to one another no matter what life brings. This call to persevere is found in the vows we take in marriage when we promise to have and hold one another in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in times of richness and in times of poverty. We openly promise to love and cherish one another until death do we part, and the only way we can keep that promise is with the Lord’s help and power as He imparts the strength to love in a way that always persevere as we seek to live the most excellent way.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com
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