Learning To Love – Sunday Thought For The Day

When Hans Egede went to Greenland as a missionary in 1721, he didn’t know the Inuit language. His temperament was often overbearing, and he struggled to be kind to the people.

In 1733, a smallpox epidemic swept through Greenland, wiping out almost two-thirds of the Inuit people—and claiming Egede’s wife as well. This shared suffering melted Egede’s harsh demeanor, and he began to tirelessly labor to care for the people physically and spiritually. Because his life now better represented the stories he told them of God’s love, the Inuits could at last grasp His desire to love them too. Even in suffering, their hearts turned to God.

Perhaps you are like the Inuits in this story, and you are unable to see God in the people around you. Or perhaps you are like Hans Egede, who struggled to express love in a way that taught people about God. Knowing we are weak and needy people, God showed us what love is like. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins (John 3:16). That’s how much God loves you and me.

Jesus is the perfect example of the love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13. As we look to Him, we learn that we are loved and we learn how to love in turn.

Jesus, let me find in You a sense that I am
loved. And may my heart not grow cold and
cluttered by anger and wounds from the past so
that others can see Your reflection in me.

May I never be the barrier that blocks one’s view of God.

Insight
This passage on love, a favorite at weddings, is probably the most quoted of all Bible texts. Here Paul describes what love looks like. Jesus summed up the duties and imperatives of the Christian faith with the duty to love God and to love others (Matt. 22:36-40). Calling it a new commandment, Jesus said love was the distinctive mark of a true follower (John 13:34-35). Building on the original standard of “lov[ing] your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39), Jesus set a new, higher standard based on His sacrificial love. He wants us to “love . . . as I have loved you” (John 13:34).

READ: 1 Corinthians 13:4-13
4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

The above was written for April 27, 2014, “Our Daily Bread” by: Randy Kilgore.
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