Persistent Love - Himalayan Heights – July 16 Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:7-8 – Never-ending Love

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 13:7-8 

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 3-4, Acts 14, Psalm 83:6–12, Proverbs17:19–21

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

Devotional: Persistent Love     

Sometimes, the problem with the words of Jesus is not that we cannot understand them (that problem exists) but that we can understand them! He says things that are so direct, so hard to accept and to obey that thing, surely he didn't really mean that! "Love your enemies." Did he really say that? "Bless those who persecute you." Maybe what he really meant is...

In Matthew 18, Peter approached Jesus and asked (I'm guessing with a sanctimonious tone) whether he actually had to forgive his brother a whole SEVEN times. Jesus responded, in verse 22, "not seven times, but seventy times seven." There is a question whether the Greek means "77 times" or "490 times" (70x7), but the ultimate truth is clear, that our love and forgiveness is to flow freely. Think about that. It is hard to forgive someone SEVEN times, isn't it? What about 77 times? Or 490 times? Can we at least agree that Jesus meant what he said?

In 1 Corinthians 13:7-8, Paul made 5 statements about the persistence of love, four positive statements and one negative. We've called these 4 things love always does and 1 thing love never does. Added to the 10 items from yesterday's devotional, they form a list of actions that demonstrate the love of God in our lives.

Four Things Love Always Does

• Love bears all things - the essence of God's love is dealing with our sins through forgiveness. When we love someone, we forgive, we forbear, we overlook their faults. This is not a lack of holiness but an act of faith. We believe that the God who redeemed us and is sanctifying us can also work in the life of the other. Simply put, the most Christlike thing any of us can do is endure wrongs from another. 
• Love believes all things - how often do we, when examining a situation, fail to calculate the power of God? When we walk in love, we include the eternal power of God in our calculations and we believe that the God who can do anything will work in the lives of those we love and serve. 
• Love hopes all things - hope is the time-traveling sister of faith and belief. It looks to the future and sees people in the light of what they will be when God is finished with them. 
• Love endures all things - the key characteristic in the lives of significant servants of God in the Bible is perseverance. They didn't give up. We must persistently serve God and pray and seek his power in the lives of others!

One Thing Love Never Does 

Love never fails (ends) -  this word pictures a leaf withering and falling from a tree. God's love is eternal. Because of his love he gives us everlasting life - a gift that is never revoked and never fails. Our love for others in the name of Christ must also be persistent and unfailing. We cannot give up on people when we serve a God who can raise the dead.

Father, give me the love that is persistent and unfailing, the love Jesus showed to me. 

Think and Pray:

Examine yourself again, against these 5 characteristics.
Are you quick to give up on others?
Are you persistent in love?