
Monday
1 Corinthians 13. 13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
I’ve often wondered about that singling out of love as the greatest. Life without hope, without the capacity to trust, would be pretty bleak. But for Paul what enables trust, what fills with hope, is the love of God in Christ. That’s the start and finish of all hope, and the final foundation of our deepest trust – “God commends his love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” When Paul writes about love in 1 Cor. 13 he is writing first and foremost about the love of God in Christ – it is THAT love that is poured into our hearts, and that we then live out in practice.
Tuesday
1 Corinthians 13.1 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
What’s more annoying than the loudest voice in the coffee shop, oblivious of the rest of us, clanging on about the holiday, or banging on about their latest grump about the boss? A Christian who makes it known they are Christian, who ‘witnesses’ to others about what they believe about Jesus, or ‘takes a stand’ on moral issues that are ‘traditionally Christian’ – can be just as annoying as that clanging cymbal at the next table, and just as hollow. Any careful, even cursory reading of the New Testament leaves us in no doubt – love is the criterion of Christian authenticity.
Wednesday
1 Corinthians 13.4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour 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.”
Read that again, and think of how Jesus lived his life, treated and responded to others. Is there a better check-list on which to measure our own relational, emotional and spiritual health? Precisely because that description of love is way beyond any one of us, without enabling grace, each day we seek once more the renewal of the reality of the indwelling Christ – “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” (Romans 5.5)

Thursday
1 John 4.7 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
Love is more than emotional affection – it is practical kindness, enacted goodness towards others, readiness to forgive, patience to understand, sharing the burdens and the laughter. When God’s love pours into the heart it issues in newness of life and becomes a spring of renewal irrigating the relationships around us. Knowing and experiencing the love of God brings about the deepest transformations of the ways we think, feel and act – God calls us to be the love of Christ personified, to be the Body of Christ. “I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me…”
Friday
1 John 4.8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
There it is. As succinct and to the point as we could possibly want. God is love! Our love for God, love for others, love as the energising fuel of life, love of enemies, love for God’s creation, love for our church and every community of Christ; all are made possible by being drawn into the love of God, the grace of Christ, the communion of the Spirit. No wonder Paul said a loveless Christian is a clanging contradiction and a discordant embarrassment. Love is both gift and imperative, choice and ommand.
Saturday
1 John 4.10 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
A Christian understanding of love comes from experience. We love because He first loved us. We entrust ourselves to that love which reaches out from the cross in mercy and forgiveness; then our whole inner self is renewed by the inpouring of the great grace of God, which is uncontainable and so it naturally finds outflow as we in turn become conduits of the grace of God in Christ. “Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.” Once again, love is both gift and demand, visible evidence of an inner reality, proof positive of a life in living connection with Christ.

Sunday
1 John 4.11 “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
We forgive because we have been forgiven; we love because we have been loved; we show mercy because mercy has been shown to us. There is an inescapably reciprocal movement of gift and response in our spiritual lives. We are blessed to become a blessing, and in blessing others we are further blessed. That phrase “Since God SO loved us” is an irresistible argument. God loved us so much, beyond what we could ever deserve or expect, without holding back and without prior conditions – God loves like that. And our love for God, others, neighbours, enemies, whoever and whenever? Every day grateful obedience demonstrates our answering love.
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