Friday 18 Oct 2013

Friday Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:8

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 13:8
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.

Devotion:
How can we dare to say that love never fails when we see marriages breaking up and people hating each other after professing unending love earlier?

That is a very difficult question to answer even after going through many things in my life. I cannot turn round and say that I am more qualified to answer this because of what I have been through, but what I can say is that God has chosen to teach me with what He knows I can bear; and that is a whole lot more than I would have chosen to bear if I had had the choice!

If we try to keep love, we will fail, just the same as if we try to keep the law and fail! We have a choice as to whether we follow the law and we also have a choice as to whether we exercise love. But God’s law is so much more than us trying to keep law, so we should realise that love is so much more than us trying to exercise love as well! Love is not something we can choose to not keep because by doing that we are choosing to exercise hatred which is the opposite of love. We could choose to try and leave love behind; but then we are choosing to uphold something else instead of love.

God gave us love in our lives, love within our spirits and love as part of our souls so that we can exercise it. If we choose to believe a raft of lies then the feelings we exercise will be corrupted or at least tainted by those lies. We can choose to sin and that will corrupt our love or allow it to be pushed into a corner or diminished in some way; but we cannot choose to not love. Many things in our lives will eat at our souls and bring our love to a standstill; but none can stop love all together.

Everything else around us can stop, fail, come to an end or even be left behind; but love will continue on for longer than we can understand. God’s love is perfect and has been demonstrated to us for many years. Our love is imperfect and seemingly fails when we fail to exercise it as we should; but it is not love failing, just us…
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you try to keep love?

Do you trust in God’s love?