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READ: 1 Corinthians 13 8, 9 and 13 NLT
'Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.'
I don’t know about you but I don’t like throwing things away. I am writing this on a laptop. A new laptop. I hung on to the last one for as long as possible. It was starting to run very slowly, and sometimes didn’t want to start at all. I was prepared to concede that it had good days and bad days, because we all do, but, in the end, I had to admit that I was devoting too much of my life to waiting for it to spring into action. The truth is, of course, that all our possessions have a limited life. Our cars, our microwaves, our beds, our desks and even our homes don’t last for ever.
The same principle exists in the spiritual realm as well. Our spiritual gifts are a wonderful blessing but they come to an end. Speaking in tongues, prophecy, preaching, words of knowledge are all amazing gifts of God but the day will come when they are silent. There will be no more need for them. However, some things do last for ever. Paul lists them as faith, hope and love. But one shines above them all and that’s love.
Isn’t it a wonderful thought that the love that we show day by day never comes to an end? It is a reflection of God’s eternal nature and so every time we reach out to another person and truly love them we are sharing in the stream of his eternal love. We need that reminder because loving is often painful and unnoticed and sometimes rejected. However, there is nothing more important that we can ever do than love.
QUESTIONS: In what way are you encouraged by the fact that love never ends?
PRAYER: Thank you Lord that your love never ends. Help me to devote more of my life to sharing the eternal gift of love. Amen
Released on 5 May 2021
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