A New Devotion - Love Is a Decision

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Love Is a Decision

Although it seems like years ago, last month we celebrated the one single day most associated with love. I mean, it’s a day of flowers and candy and hearts. You see, on Valentine’s Day, we offer cards and gifts to those whom we love. And even though I’ve got friends who say it’s a scam perpetrated by Hallmark to boost their business, my wife isn’t one of those cynical folks. She sees it as a special time dedicated to what she feels about me and I better feel about her. I’m telling you, on February 14, love is definitely a feeling worth celebrating.

And even though I believe that’s appropriate, when Paul described love to the Corinthians, he really wasn’t talking about a feeling. I mean, let’s get real, we don’t have to feel love to be patient and kind and to rejoice in the truth rather than in lies. And we don’t have to feel love not to be envious or boastful, arrogant or rude, irritable or resentful. And although it might help, we sure don’t have to feel love to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. You see, this kind of love really isn’t emotional at all, instead it’s a decision. And right along with our decision to trust and to hope, it’s our decision to love that will enduring to the end.