Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. -1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV
I was getting frustrated with a slow driver yesterday and I heard this in my mind: "Love is patient Bob". Yikes. It is so easy to embrace an intellectual view of love and forget that love is best defined by attitudes and actions. Paul speaks to us in these verses instructing us with regard to the attitudes and actions of love. He tells us that real love never fails.
I love the four "always" statements as they speak to us of the true nature of an attitude of love. When we love we are on such firm ground. We protect. We trust. We hope. And we persevere. Love is the lighthouse in the storm guiding us to safe shore. These verses instruct us and tell us what love really looks like. They tell us how to live a life of love.
Teach us Lord what it means to love and to develop an attitude of love as we travel through our lives.
... this devotion is part of an ongoing series on words in the bible.
This is a tough one! Especially "keeps no record of wrongs". I have difficulty with that one. Although I am always a forgiving person, I am not so easy to forget. This particular passage, keeping no record, tells me that I should forget a person's wrongful action against me, as well as forgive. Well, this is really hard ~ but not impossible, right?
ReplyDeleteNow I know what I have to work on for today, and tomorrow, and the weekend, and next week.....
Angelina
Good thoughts Angelina. Perhaps it is more about choosing to hold it against someone that forgetting? Or possibly seeing a person in a different light. Or maybe it is about allowing love to trump our memory?
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