OUR DAILY BREAD : ENDURING LOVE

[cimi]

February 13
Friday


ENDURING LOVE

READ:
1 Corinthians 13:1-8
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[Love] bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
__1 Corinthians 13:7
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Like many people, I enjoy the Google homepage artwork that appears on special days and holidays. Last Valentine's Day, the artistic logo showed an older couple--a man with a cane and a white-haired woman--walking hand in hand as the woman held two heart-shaped balloons. It was a beautiful reminder that while our culture glorifies youthful romance, true love has many stages during our journey through life.

Paul's great essay in 1 Corinthians 13 celebrates the depth and tenacity of the love that carries us beyond self-interest and mere affection. "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails" (vv.4-8).

Brain Wren has captured this reality in his moving hymn, "When Love I Found":

`````````````When love is tried as loved ones change,``````````````
````````````Hold still to hope though all seems strange,`````````````
``````````````Till ease returns, and love grows wise````````````````
`````````````Through listening ears and opened eyes.``````````````

When our commitments are tested in the fires of life, no matter what difficulties we face, may God grant us a greter experience of His enduring love and the grace to demonstrate it each day. __David McCasland
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God's love is a fabric that never fades, no matter how
often it is washed in the waters of adversity

************Today's Bible Reading __ 1 Corinthians 13:1-8**********

1 Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of
angels, but have not love, I
have become sounding
brass or a clanging cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift
of prophecy, and understand
all mysteries and all
knowledge, and though I
have all faith, so that I
could remove mountains,
but have not love, I am
nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is
kind; love does not envy;
love does not parade itself,
is not puffed up; 5 does not
behave rudely, does not
seek its own, is not
provoked, thinks no evil;

6 does not rejoice in
iniquity, but rejoices in the
truth; 7 bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But
whether there are
prophecies, they will fail;
whether there are tongues,
they will cease; whether
there is knowledge, it will
vanish away.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>INSIGHT<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Eloquence was greatly admired in the first century. The Corinthians
were no exception to this, though they found little of it in Paul
(1 Cor. 2:1). His reference to the "tongues [languages] of men and
of angels" (1 Cor. 13:1) was a hyperbole about eloquence. Without
love, lofty speech might be momentarily electrifying--like a clash of
a gong or a cymbal--but then vanishing just as quickly. Love, on the
other hand, produces eternal effects. __Dennis Fisher

Adapted from The Bible Knowledge Commentary

[realtmg]

amen cimi