Recently I had the opportunity to give a quick devotion lesson to our LIFT Men group.
As I was praying on what topic I should speak on, I decided that as February is Valentine’s month, I should speak on love.
The obvious scripture choice here is 1 Corinthians 13, A.K.A. the love chapter.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV)
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
It is easy to gloss over this scripture as many of us have heard it innumerable times, but we need to really break it down.
Love is patient. If we are impatient we are not walking in love.
Love is kind. If we are unkind we are not loving as God truly desires for us to love.
I will not break down the entire scripture as that is for another day, however, more than anything we are called to love other Christians. In John 13:35, Jesus told us that the main way we can demonstrate that we are truly His disciples is by the fact that we love each other.
It is typically easy to love our fellow Christians that we only see once a week for two hours on Sunday, but as Pastor has pointed out on many occasions, the main Christians we are in consistent contact with are our families and friends.
If you really dig down into this, when we are impatient with our spouses or children we are not loving our fellow Christians.
When we are unkind to our friends, we are not loving each other the way that Jesus loved us.
Let’s examine our lives and make sure that we are truly loving as described in 1 Corinthians 13, not only to those we see once a week on Sundays, but especially to those closest to us.
To wrap it up, let’s look at Romans 13:10.
10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
Love does not hurt or harm anyone, therefore:
What is Love? Baby, don’t hurt me!