PRAY: repeat prayer from day 1
READ: 1 Corinthians 13:8–13
MEDITATE: When I officiate at a wedding and read the words, “Love never fails” (v. 8), I am painfully aware that human affection can fail! And it does—often and disastrously. Yet love as God defines it, never fails.
Love without an objective grounding in the truth of the living God of the universe runs rampant. St. John’s affirmation that “God is love” (1 John 4:16) has been inverted in the popular slogan “Where there is love there is God.” And while the Scripture insists that “love rejoices with the truth” (v. 6), there are those who would dispense with God’s revealed standards concerning human sexuality—and the nature of the gospel itself!—in the name of preserving love.
Since Paul ends his chapter by associating love with faith and hope, it is clear that we ought to do the same. As we wonder what the coming days will hold in store, as we live between Christ’s first and second coming, between the inauguration and the consummation of God’s kingdom, we can know and believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of his church!
Questions and Application:
- What does this passage say?
- What does this passage mean?
- Has TEC/our diocese/our congregation been at all sloppy in manifesting love?
PRAY: O God of unchangeable power and eternal light, look favorably on your whole church, that wonderful and sacred mystery. By the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.