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Meditation 4.19
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On Saturdays, we consider a passage of Scripture:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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 gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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Less is more
Love seeketh not itself to please
Nor for itself hath any care.
But for another gives its ease
And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.
(by William Blake)
“Oh, I’d like to speak with great eloquence! And in tongues!
And how I would like to be a prophet with godly wisdom and foresight!
And to work miracles? Oh, wow!”
None of those desires strike me as unusual and out of the ordinary. Those three gifts receive much emphasis in our day.
But going from child to man and from foggy vision to clarity changes our perspective and our value system.
“Oh, to love as God loves!”
Love — the greatest of these.
Love — the more excellent way.
Love — how folks know I’m Jesus’ disciple.
I do not believe any human being can love in this way without the Spirit and the grace of God enabling. It is the one area that shows more than ever our need for a Savior and the daily walking with the Spirit.
This passage should have been Friday’s poem. Though unryhmed, there is not greater poetry in the Enlish language, especially as it is read in the King James.
It may sound cliche because it is so true it has been said over and over again through centuries, “Love never fails!” Love capitalized, love personified, God is love is the ultimate resolution to all of earthly life.
I heard a wonderful love story recently. An acquaintance of mine was in a bad car accident just 27 days after she was married. It took her a long time and lots of surgery to recover. She is still mostly in a wheelchair, although sometimes is able to walk shorter distances with a cane. She still remembers how amazed she was of the wonderful care her husband gave her. The hours he spent by her side in the hospital and the difficult tasks he had to do for her, cemented a love in her heart for him that is very evident as she speaks. It is in the hard places that one’s love is tested.
I cannot in and of myself do any of these things. It is only though Christ who has done it all for me. Here is a paraphrase from our son and DDIL’s wedding homily:
His love for you is patient … and is kind.
His love for you does not envy … does not boast … and is not proud.
As Christ has shown you on the cross, his love for you is not self-seeking
As Christ shows you in his words of forgiveness, his love for you keeps absolutely no record of wrongs.
And Christ promises you today that his love for you will always protect … always trust …. always hope … and always persevere.
Christ promises you today that his love for you will never fail.
KI,
It is the hard places in life that love is strengthened. What a wonderful husband to continue in his love for her.
Adios, the shame is that it’s unconstitutional for our children to learn it. I remember reading it as part of our studies in English. We also learned, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” (II Tim 4:7), but we didn’t study the circumstances around it.
There are many who profess a love for God, speak in tongues and do all kinds of work for Him who forget this passage. I know, I used to be one of them.
Re: Adios mentiong the KJV. WOuld it be asking too much if the weekly meditation passage came with which version is quoted?
I remember having to memorize verses 4-8 in third grade Sunday School (the only class in our UCC church where we were ever expected to memorize Scripture - I found out years later that the couple who taught that class were Evangelical Christians, which was pretty unusual in a liberal church like that). I was pretty mystified by the whole chapter. I couldn’t understand what was the big deal in giving up one’s body to be burned, which I thought referred to cremation. And I couldn’t understand how anyone could actually think of others first. They never talked in that church about the Spirit’s power or the grace of God enabling us to love that way.
Ditto to those who say we can’t do that except by God’s grace. That was what drew me to become a Christian, because I wanted to be able to love God’s way.
Bloggers and other professional tongue speakers (aka our writers of various sorts): this noise at the beginning is a pretty challenge. In the ad agency it drove me nuts when I realized that I often was creating this noise; that I was writing on water.
If writing is a kind of exalting of ego, the way of love is one of self-mortification. It is a way of patience, of setting ourselves aside — like Paul also talks about in Philippians.
Maybe in an election year with its inevitable food fights, the middle stanza could take root (better) in our lives: that love is patient and kind, not arrogant or rude … Ah, there’s a challenge.
Given these verses, how can any Christian divorce?
I view my marriage as an exercise course where I get to practice these truths. The more difficult the exercise, the better it is for me. When my wife is especially trying, it is something to thank God for. We’re in this for life! Heaven help us!