January 17, 2022

1 Corinthians 13 (HCSB)
1 If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, 5 does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. 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 put aside childish things. 12 For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. 13 Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Jason Ricciardi - What a remarkable section of Scripture!  It’s been spoken at weddings, endlessly quoted in literature, and a source of encouragement throughout the millennia.  My mom, who says she can’t memorize scripture, recited this at her wedding almost 45 years ago.  The love behind it was enough to help her walk through all those years and remain hand in hand with my dad.  She was faithful in the hard years, hopeful in the years before he started serving the Lord, and loving in EVERY year – especially the Alzheimer’s years.  My family has been remarkably changed by her visible display of love. It’s interesting, though, to put this passage back into context.  The chapters before it are all about how we are to operate as a larger body of believers – specifically church!  Have you struggled to find your place at church?  Have you been wounded at church?  There is a love that can cover over those to help us, to help YOU, be spiritually healthier.  It is the supernatural love that God has for YOU in Jesus!  One of the last things Paul says in this letter is that there is a resurrection where you get to experience that love – GOD’S LOVE – for all of eternity.