October 29, 2019
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
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.
New International Version (NIV)
                    A friend described a church to me recently saying, “They have problems.”  I suppose every church could be described that way because the church is comprised of people who, it turns out, also have problems.  The church in Corinth struggled with more problems than most of the churches in the New Testament world.  We have chronicled some of them along the way:  they were divided and divisive, proud of the immorality of a member, litigious as they aired their problems in the courts, judgmental, contentious, and entitled.

                But wait.  There is more.  Not only did they fight over the Lord’s Supper, but they fought over God’s good gifts.  Thankfully their struggles led Paul to write lengthy letters which help us in our churches today.  Wedged in the middle of his two chapters on the spiritual gifts, Paul invites the church in Corinth to love each other with agape love.  What kind of love is that?  He describes it in these verses.  We read it at weddings urging couples to love each other in this way.  Mainly it was written to show us how to treat each other in the body.  No matter how gifted we are in God’s work, without love it will come to nothing.

                James Bryan Smith calls the three highlighted virtues, faith, hope and love, “theological virtues.”  Why?  Because they are built on the actions of God.  God empowers us to trust, to hope and to love.  When it has all been said and done, love will be the last virtue standing (13:13).  It comprises and comprehends the others within itself.  So how are we doing with this?  A confession in one of my devotional guides teaches me to pray:  we have not loved you Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength.  We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.  Like you, I want to protest about the time I was kind to someone.  Only through the Holy Spirit will we find that love becomes not the occasional exception but the rule in our lives.  So whom shall we love?  Start with your neighbor.  Act as though you love them, C. S. Lewis proposed, and you will actually begin to love them.  Love never fails!
Pray with me:      
Father, thank you for so loving the world that you gave your one and only Son.  Transform us by your love and teach us how to love the way you do.  Reveal our relationships to us today and show us where we have failed to love you and others well.  Forgive our failure and empower us to love others today with an unfailing, undying love, the love we have found in Christ and his people.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  
This year our Every Day with Jesus readings will follow The Bible Project Read Scripture Plan.  Copies of this reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download 
the app at readscripture.org.  Read through the Bible with us in 2019!
Joyfully, 
Duane 

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