“Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Monday

1 Corinthians 13.8 “Love never fails, But where there are prophecies they will cease; where there are tongues they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”

What is it that lasts when everything else runs out of time, energy, and impetus? Love. That’s what lasts. All those acts of kindness, bearing others’ burdens, gifts of time to listen, forgiveness offered before it’s asked, patience in peace-making. Add up all the most impressive spiritual gifts. They don’t displace love. “Lord fill us with your love, the characteristic behaviour pattern of the Christ-like disciple.”

Tuesday

1 Corinthians 13.9-10  “For we know in part, and we prophecy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.”

The more we think we know of God’s love and purpose, the less we really know. As for prophecy, it’s about speech and action enabled by the Holy Spirit. If love is deficient or even absent, no amount of claimed spirituality can make up that deficit. Christ-like love, to love as Christ loves – to the same extent, with the same wide-warmed embrace of others, at personal cost ungrudgingly paid – to aim at such love is to aim at perfection. “Lord, help us to live towards the perfection of your love.”

Wednesday

1 Corinthians 13.11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I grew to maturity I put away childish things.”

Paul is telling the Corinthians to grow up! The community of Christ is not a playground. Worship, prayer and service are not games where the joy is in winning and out-competing others. Maturity is not fascination with gifts and personal promotion, or needing to be entertained and amused at every turn. Loving others is a serious though joyful lifestyle, funded and fuelled by the Holy Spirit, with Christ as both coach and goal. Only in that sense is it about ‘playing the game’. “Lord, bring us to maturity in Christ, and forgive us when we cling to childish things.”

Thursday

1 Corinthians 13.12 “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face.”

Mirrors in Paul’s day were polished metal, and it was very difficult to see exactly and clearly what the face looks like. Distortions and blurring were common in most affordable mirrors. The important phrase is “but then”. When we see Jesus face to face what we will see is the love of God in Christ incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended.  Whatever divine love looks like when looking on us, that we will see. And it’s that anticipation of looking on the One who loved us from all eternity that is the inspiration for Jesus followers to love as we are loved. Lord may we look with love on those you look on with love, because Love is who you are, and who we are in Christ.

Friday

1 Corinthians 13.12 “Now I know in part; but then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

We see ourselves poorly, as in a faulty mirror. More than that, whatever we think we know, it’s always only part of what we can possibly know. It’s a scary thought that anyone, let alone God, should know us fully, completely, comprehensively, in all the complexity, vulnerability and unpredictability of the person we are. We only partly understand ourselves at the best of times. Time will come when before God we will stand, fully understood, all masks removed, face to face with the Triune God of grace made known in Christ Jesus our Lord– “Then Lord, may we fully know the Love that fully knows us to the deepest reality of who we are, and know ourselves loved.”

Saturday

1 Corinthians 13.13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

That word abide, it means to go on existing, to endure when much else has evaporated. They are the three cardinal virtues of Christian life: faith, hope and love. It is the love of God in Christ that we trust, in believing faith; and it is that same love of God revealed in Christ, enacted by the Holy Spirit who draws us towards God’s future. Such Christ-centred faith and hope are sure and steadfast, because anchored in the reality of who God is. God is love. “Lord God, in your eternal love we trust and hope. Make us live and move and have our being in the grace and love of Christ.”

Sunday

1 Corinthians 14.1 “Follow the way of love…”

The word Paul uses for ‘Follow’, can mean pursue, chase after, and suggests a determined hunt. Love is not a leisure pursuit or discretionary activity. Love is an intentional way of life, built on habits of the heart, sustained by the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. (Romans 5.5) You follow Jesus you follow the way of love; neighbours and enemies, the least, the last and the lost, the annoying and the enjoyable folk, folk of our own faith or no faith. “Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too.” And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.