“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless. When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 NLT
Father of Love,
This chapter sums up, in the positive, all the things Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians in this letter.
Paul warns them against pride. Thinking some individuals and evangelists more important than others (1 Cor 3:5-9). Thinking themselves more important than another serving in their fellowship (1 Cor 12:7-11) when we are all part of Your love God and part of one body.
Paul warns them about sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:15-20) and self control – whether to remain single or marry (1 Cor 7:8-9). Love not lust.
He warns them against idolatry, and perhaps we just need to adapt this to the worship of idols today! (1 Cor 10:14-18) And calls them to orderly communion and worship (1 Cor 14:26). He straightens them out about the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor 15:50-53).
Every part of this letter highlights keeping to Your calling God, to be Your love in the world. It begins with praising them before You, God and ends with the hope that he, Paul can make a long visit with them soon, because he wants to spend time with them. Your Word, Lord begins with You saying that You created man and saw it as good. The books of the Bible show us how man fails You, but gives us a picture of what Your love actually looks like. It is perfected in Jesus. And Your word continually tells us that You want, not just to visit us, but to dwell with us. Till the day till we take up our resurrection bodies. Reading Paul’s letters, help us to see the areas we need to work on to show Your love, Lord.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen
Worship Monday 1st December 2025
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free—
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me
Is the current of His love—
Leading onward, leading homeward
To His glorious rest above.
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
Spread His praise from shore to shore!
Praise His mercy, praise His goodness;
Praise His love forevermore.
How He watcheth o’er His loved ones,
Died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth,
Watcheth o’er them from His throne.
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
Love of ev’ry love the best—
’Tis an ocean vast of blessing;
’Tis a haven sweet of rest.
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
’Tis a heav’n of heav’ns to me;
And it lifts me up to glory,
Lifts me up eternally.
Lyrics: S Trevor Francis