Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [85] Sonnet of Love (1)

Zoomed Out?

Don't get me wrong Zoom is better than nothing, and one up on phone or text.  But Zoom isn't the same as full real life, for all sorts of reasons.

For one, many of us don't like looking at ourselves. In real life conversation we don't have to see ourselves, only everyone else.

Here is another: at the end of the meeting there is an awkward moment when everyone suddenly disappears into thin air at the press of a red button! No human meetings end that way! In real life, one person drifts out with a cheery "good bye" followed by another and so on, with lots of friendly person-to-person banter along the way.

Was Zoom, I wonder, designed by men?(!) I can't imagine women designing an app with such a catastrophic meeting end!

Starting today, we plan to consider the most famous "love chapter" in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, a few lines at a time.

Wedding Bells?

Many people will know 1 Corinthians 13 as the famous chapter read at weddings. Perhaps it was read at yours. But few passages of Scripture are placed in the wrong context as frequently as this one.

Paul did not write this to happy couples! When his letter was first read out to the church at Corinth, a thousand embarassed blushes would have flashed across the gathered congregation!

Why? Because folks in the church were failing almost every line of this sonnet of love.

Let's hear these words of beauty:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

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. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

"That" Church

The church at Corinth was an amazing church - in more than one way. It was amazing because most of these people had come from heathen darkness into the light of the Gospel and their lives had been utterly transformed. They had become new creations in Christ, with new loves and new desires.

Most of them came from the ranks of ordinary people, only a few were of noble birth.

And since the church is God's sanctification pressure vessel, where God's people have to learn how to love one another and become holy, some of these babes in Christ were messing up big time, along the way - it's what infants do.

For example, at communion, which came at the end of a fellowship meal, some folk were scoffing themselves to death, they had so much food, while others were half starving!

Other folk, filled with personal ambition and pride, wanted the most showy-off spiritual gifts rather than the background serving kind.

But these "love" problems, don't get me wrong, were the problems of a real and living church, not the problems of a dying one!  No "who can paint the windows this spring" stuff here! This was mayhem in the playground, not problems in the funeral parlour.

Wherever you have young Christians, you have issues. But they are the problems of life. I would personally prefer a church full of Corinthian problems than a church full of "I don't like the new flavour of the communion wine" or "I disagree with the pastor's personal view of petrine eschatalogy" or "I don't agree with the colour of the new chairs" kind of problems.

This is Love

So, as we make our way through this sonnet of love, line by line, let's remember that it was written to correct our wrong views of love and our failure to love.

Whenever I read this mirror I feel I have never loved! For I have not always been patient, I have sometimes kept a record of wrongs, I have not always trusted. And this recognition of failure is meant to be our first response, so that we can learn afresh and grow.

Ultimately, 1 Corinthians 13 describes the love of God in Christ Jesus. "This is love" says John, "not that we loved God but that he loved us and gave himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

The Love of God the Father in giving up his Son and the Love of the Son in freely giving up his life for wretched rebels is the pinnacle of all love.

No love can reach it, all genuine loves must aspire to this divine sacrificial giving-up love.

TWO SONGS FOR THE DAY

Here are two short songs about divine love.

A new commandment I give unto you,
that you love one another as I have loved you,
that you love one another as I have loved you.
By this shall all know that you are my disciples,
if you have love one for another;
by this shall all know that you are my disciples:
if you have love one for another.

Roy Crabtree

You can listen HERE.

Hallelujah, My Father
For Giving Us Your Son

Sending Him Into The World
To Be Given Up For Men

Knowing We Would Bruise Him
And Smite Him From The Earth

Hallelujah, My Father
In His Death Is My Birth

Hallelujah, My Father
In His Life Is My Life

Tim Cullen

You can listen HERE.

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Our loving Father in heaven,

We thank you for your excelling love.

We read that God is love and we see that most supremely in you sending us your Son.

We thank you for sending him into the world, knowing beforehand that he would be mistreated and killed by enemies.

We thank you that through his death we have life.

Forgive us our failure to love.

We thank you that you have poured your love into our hearts, and we pray that it will grow with the passing years, so that the world may know that we are followers of the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray.

Amen