A home study - Love in all its aspects

August  - week 3

Blessed be the Lord our  rock

He is my love our fortress;

He is our stronghold, our Saviour

Our shield, our place of refuge

Lord, what is man , that you care for him; mortal man, that you keep him in mind;

But you do Lord, You do and so much more than that -  You love us.

We don’t really understand, but we do so appreciate.

Amen

Prayer

For those yet to believe (Isaiah 55:6-8;)

In our case we think ahead to Liz and Shaun’s wedding  - a Christian  service where those who attend include many who have no real faith even if they are nominally Christian .

“Seek the LORD while he may be found;  call on him while he is near.
⁷ Let the wicked forsake their ways  and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

For Christians we know

¹⁵ Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, ¹⁶ I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. ¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit^[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

For those who are Christians and who seek to do the will of God in a particular ministry  - I think of those involved in such things as ‘Healing on the Streets’, the trip to Zambia, CBBC, ( Sunday school)  the hospital chaplaincy, feeding the homeless and all the rest  - a cry for power

Acts 4 v 29, 30 “Now, Lord,…. enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.  Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

Bible Study

We are going to consider today one of the great classic passages on love, one that almost everyone is familiar with, but too often people just read chapter 13 and failed to include the verse before  where Paul says ‘ I will show you a more excellent way’ and then goes on to describe love.. Also the first verse of chapter 14  ‘Eagerly pursue and seek to acquire this love – make it your aim.’

Many years ago a friend called Rene Catchelin, a great grand daughter of William Booth,  challenged a group of us to read 1 Corinthians  13 and put our names in place of the words love. So I read from v 4 onwards ‘Margaret is patient, Margaret is kind. Margaret does not envy, does not boast – I soon came to a staggering halt.

1 Corinthians 13 -  Amplified Bible

¹IF I [can] speak in the tongues of men and [even] of angels, but have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such ^[a]as is inspired by God's love for and in us), I am only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

²And if I have prophetic powers (^[b]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God's love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

³Even if I dole out all that I have [to the poor in providing] food, and if I surrender my body to be burned or ^[c] in order that I may glory, but have not love (God's love in me), I gain nothing.  ⁴Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

⁵It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].

⁶It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.   ⁷Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].  ⁸Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (^[d]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].   ⁹For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).  ¹⁰But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).  ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.   ¹²For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as ^[e]in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand ^[f]fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been ^[g]fully and clearly known and understood [^[h]by God].  ¹³And so faith, hope, love abide [faith--conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Closing prayer  - adapted from ‘Shine, Jesus, shine  ( Graham Kendrick)
Lord, the light of your love is shining
In the midst of the darkness shining;
Jesus, Light of the World,  shine upon us,
Set us free by the truth You now bring us, Shine on us, shine on us. 
As we gaze on your radiant  love
May our faces display Your likeness
Ever changing from glory to glory
Mirrored here may our lives tell your story,
Shine on us, shine on us, Amen