DEVOTION – DAY 327

1 Corinthians 13:13

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now, these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The greatest quality that a Christian should pursue is that of love. This is because God is love. The apostle John, in 1 John 4:8 declared that God is love. Also, in 1 John 4:10, God has communicated His love to us. In John 13:34-35, the Lord also commands us to love one another. This command to love one another is repeated often in the New Testament eg. Romans 13:10; Galatians 5:6; Ephesians 4:16; 5:20; 1 Peter 4:8 and many other similar verses. This repetition is necessary because loving one another is a quality above all other Christian qualities and spiritual gifts. This is because it is the one Christian characteristic that is always enduring and will outlast everything else. One day, we will no longer need the gift of hospitality, the gift of prophecy, the gift of compassion and so on when Jesus returns to reign and rule. But love will still be the governing principle that controls all that God and His people are and do. Because God is love. As His followers, we are to love Him and to love one another.

How do we apply this today? Recently, someone requested her marriage to be registered in our church. The problem was that she wanted the registration to be conducted during a period when many other events have already been arranged. The normal response would be to tell the person that our church schedule was full during the period and the person had to change her date preference to suit our church schedule. But we chose to extend her love by trying to understand from her point of view. She explained that she was trying to conserve her annual leave and that she ideally wanted her marriage to be registered on a particular Saturday. We explained that our schedule had been blocked off for other committed events but if she was willing to be have the registration at 4pm, we would conduct the registration for her. This required us to return back to church at 4pm, and there was additional admin work to accommodate this request. Showing love and consideration for her meant that we have to accept some inconvenience to help her in her situation. It is much easier to love others who are loving and accommodating to us. It is harder to show love to others who may be inconveniencing us, who may be demanding of us. But we are to love one another because God is love.

Let us pray: Heavenly Father, we worship you because you are kind and loving. Thank you for loving us and accepting us as your children. Please help us to love one another always and in every situation. We ask this in the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Questions

  1. What are some situations where you have difficulty showing love to others? Share.
  2. How can you change your attitudes and behavior in the situations where you have difficulty loving others? Discuss.
  3. How have you managed to turn a difficult situation around by showing love instead of anger or impatience with someone? Share.