14 day plan

Friendship

Day 3 of 14

GNT

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

4Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; 5love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; 6love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. 7Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.

Reflections:  How friends love  Jesus has shown us in John 15 that friendship is a product of love. Sometimes the notion of love can feel like an abstract or wishy-washy concept. Paul’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 can be really helpful in thinking through what it means to be a friend who loves. This passage – which is not about husbands and wives – is helpful to understand how friends should love. A friend is patient and kind. A friend doesn’t get jealous or brag
or keep a record of all the times they’ve been hurt. A friend stops others from doing something evil and points to the truth. A friend protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres. At this point you may be feeling rather overwhelmed. Who can possibly live up to this? Who among us can be a friend who constantly loves like this?  And the simple answer is: no one. But the more accurate answer is: no one but Jesus. Remember, he is the perfect friend. He is the one in whom all these marks of friendship are perfectly fulfilled. When we look to Jesus we see the truest friend you could possibly ask for. This is the friend we all need. And what a friend he is.

Questions:  Are you a friend who embodies the qualities of 1 Cor 13: 4 – 7? Are there some things you need to repent of, apologize for or ask God to help
you grow in?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please help us to be friends who are patient and kind. Help us to not get jealous or brag or keep a record of all the times we have been hurt. Please give us wisdom to stop our friends from doing something evil and point them to the truth. Please help us to be a who friend protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres.

We’re reading the Bible until June 30th with Caitlin Orr.  Caitlin is an Assistant Minister at Watsons Bay Anglican Church in Sydney.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Love

1I may be able to speak the languages of human beings and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. 2 I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no love, I am nothing. 3I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned—but if I have no love, this does me no good.

4Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; 5love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; 6love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. 7Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail.

8Love is eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it will pass. 9For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; 10but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear.

11When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a child; now that I am an adult, I have no more use for childish ways. 12What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete—as complete as God's knowledge of me.

13Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.