1 Corinthians 13: God's Love inUs
Today's Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:11-12
We all need love. We all want love. It is a basic human desire. Paul took a little-used word - agape - and infused it with new meaning. It signifies the love of God, a love that initiates, that seeks, and that acts for the good of the other.
We will spend 7 days focusing on 13 short verses this week, but if you will learn and inculcate this into your life, it will revolutionize how you live. Learn what God's love is all about and how to live in God's love in a sinful world.
We will spend 7 days focusing on 13 short verses this week, but if you will learn and inculcate this into your life, it will revolutionize how you live. Learn what God's love is all about and how to live in God's love in a sinful world.
If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy 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 give away all my possessions, and if I give over 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 arrogant, 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, 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 tongues, 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 only a reflection 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.
Through the Bible Readings: Nehemiah 7-8, Acts 15:22–41, Psalm 84:1–7, Proverbs17:24–26
If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings.
Devotional: Childlike Knowledge
"Oh, grow up."
I have heard that more than once even in my adult years. I love to play and to have fun, and some have (mistakenly, of course) seen that as childish. Maybe it's why I enjoy my grandkids so much. It gives me an excuse to do childish things!
Alas, as we grow up, we have to enter the adult world and do adult things. Jobs. Bills. Taxes. We have to set the carefree joys of childhood aside to take on the responsibilities of adulthood.
It is odd, then, that Scripture often admonishes us to be like children. Jesus told us to have the faith of a child if we wanted to enter the kingdom. He meant we needed to trust God as a child trusts a parent - absolute dependence. Here, Paul tells us that we must realize that even though we may be grown adults in many ways, in our understanding, we are still children.
I live in a theological world and interact with a lot of pastors, professors, and others who spend time studying the Bible. It is easy to be recalcitrant in our doctrine and so settled in our views, assured that we know everything and can learn nothing. Children are sponges for knowledge, always learning, always absorbing new things in this world.
Our attitude, in this world, must be that of a child. We should always seek to know all that we can, to fill our minds with the truth of God, but we must also realize that there is more to learn out there. I have learned much, but I only have a child's knowledge, a child's grasp of truth. One day, Jesus will complete my knowledge. Today, I see through a smudged, darkened glass, but one day, I will see things clearly.
This is not to say that we cannot know or that the attempt at knowledge isn't important. We should seek to know as much of God, as much of the Bible as we can. But we must also maintain a childlike attitude, a humble spirit. There's so much more to know than I know.
I have heard that more than once even in my adult years. I love to play and to have fun, and some have (mistakenly, of course) seen that as childish. Maybe it's why I enjoy my grandkids so much. It gives me an excuse to do childish things!
Alas, as we grow up, we have to enter the adult world and do adult things. Jobs. Bills. Taxes. We have to set the carefree joys of childhood aside to take on the responsibilities of adulthood.
It is odd, then, that Scripture often admonishes us to be like children. Jesus told us to have the faith of a child if we wanted to enter the kingdom. He meant we needed to trust God as a child trusts a parent - absolute dependence. Here, Paul tells us that we must realize that even though we may be grown adults in many ways, in our understanding, we are still children.
I live in a theological world and interact with a lot of pastors, professors, and others who spend time studying the Bible. It is easy to be recalcitrant in our doctrine and so settled in our views, assured that we know everything and can learn nothing. Children are sponges for knowledge, always learning, always absorbing new things in this world.
Our attitude, in this world, must be that of a child. We should always seek to know all that we can, to fill our minds with the truth of God, but we must also realize that there is more to learn out there. I have learned much, but I only have a child's knowledge, a child's grasp of truth. One day, Jesus will complete my knowledge. Today, I see through a smudged, darkened glass, but one day, I will see things clearly.
This is not to say that we cannot know or that the attempt at knowledge isn't important. We should seek to know as much of God, as much of the Bible as we can. But we must also maintain a childlike attitude, a humble spirit. There's so much more to know than I know.
Father, help me keep this balance between knowing and seeking. I want to know you and your word, but help me never to reach the point where I believe I have arrived. Keep me in a childlike state of learning and growing.
Think and Pray:
Do you maintain a childlike spirit of learning and growing?
Are you a "know-it-all" or are you constantly seeking and growing and learning new truths in God's word?
Are you a "know-it-all" or are you constantly seeking and growing and learning new truths in God's word?
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