Love Is - Himalayan Heights – July 15 Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 – Living Love, pt 2

1 Corinthians 13: God's Love inUs

All Scripture is God-breathed and useful, but there are some Scriptures that we can consider the Himalayan mountaintops of the Bible. In the next few months, we will be looking at a series of great texts that inspire and move us - the "Himalayan Heights" of God's Word.

Today's Reading:  1 Corinthians 13:4-6 

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.

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 1-2, Acts 13:35–52, Psalm 83:1–5, Proverbs17:17–18

If you wish to read through the Bible in a year, follow these readings. 

Devotional:  Love Is...   

The church at Corinth had a problem - a big one. They valued those things that magnified self over giving glory to God. They valued status over service. They put a high priority on spiritual gifts that were showy and drew attention to themselves and valued what was spectacular. At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13, Paul told them, "Now I am going to show you a more excellent way." There is a better way than the showy spiritual gifts and attention-grabbing ways of Corinth.

That path is called love. We've defined that as self-sacrifice, giving up my rights and my desires in the service of others. In verses 4-8 we are given a series of verbs that define love - two things love is, 8 things love isn't, 4 things love always does, and 1 thing love never does. I will list them here and give a brief definition of each.

Remember, biblical love is not about emotion, but about choices. In your anger, you can choose love. In your hurt, you can choose love. In your pain, you can choose love.

Two Loving Actions:

• Love is patient - literally, slow to anger. Love doesn't respond to provocation with anger or seek vengeance, but responds redemptively. This is a work of God, friends. Don't try this at home (without the Spirit's help). 
• Love is kind - the flip side of patience. Instead of responding to provocation with anger and vengeance, we seek to bless the offender in Christ. 

Obviously, the model of patience and kindness is Christ.

Eight Actions Love Rejects: 

• Love does not envy - such a little thing in our eyes, yet it tops this list! In Corinth, it was all about self-aggrandizement, but Paul said that love rejects such things - it doesn't envy or give in to jealousy. 
• Love is not boastful - the word refers to a braggart or a blowhard, one who prattles about his own greatness. Paul said his only boast would be in the cross of Christ. 
• Love is not arrogant -  puffed up, inflated with a sense of self-importance. Now, Paul is meddling, getting at the heart of the Corinthian problem. Philippians 2:6-8 reminds us of the Way of the Cross, how Jesus humbled himself. Nothing is more contrary to Christ than prideful arrogance. 
• Love is not rude - this verb implies caring only about one's own pleasure and disregarding other's needs. Love is about blessing others, not just pleasing myself. 
• Love is not self-seeking - here is the heart and soul of it all. Love is selflessness. Remember the love-feasts in 1 Corinthians 11? Even their celebrations of Christ's death had become selfish!
• Love is not irritable - let's ignore this. My wife reads these! This can refer to either a slow boil or an explosion. The idea is the opposite of patience. 
• Love does not keep a record of wrongs - we choose not to keep a mental record of the wrongs that are done to us, but demonstrate love to others by forgiving and forbearing their sins. 
• Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth - love is not about simply tolerating evil, but seeing God's best happen in the lives of others. 

Our ideas of love are so different from the world's definitions of love. Here is the question of the day, and you need the Spirit of God to guide you here. Are you living in love? 

Father, may I live in love every day, the love that flows from you and is mine in Christ!

Think and Pray:

Review the 10 items listed here today. How does your life match up? (Hint: you will find plenty of areas of failure!)
Which areas are the greatest needs in your life?