A New Devotion - Love Is a Decision

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Love Is a Decision

You know, we live in a society in which the word “love” can mean many different things. But more often-than-not, we use it to refer to a feeling we may or may not have experienced. You see, whether it’s something we lost or never had, it generally leads either to our own pleasure or pain. And whether it describes a very specific event at a very definite time or a general perspective on life, it often involves our hearts rather than our heads. And whether it focuses on someone or something, it nearly always shapes our emotions. Now that’s the kind of love that leads to everything from soliloquies and vows to prozac and therapy. You see, I believe this is what we generally assume is going on when the word “love” is dropped into a conversation.

But of course, that’s us, not the Apostle Paul, the one who wrote the passage we read a little while ago. You see, for him, love referred to something a lot more concrete than just a feeling. As a matter of fact, based on what he wrote, generally it would lead to a person to make some kind of real sacrifice. And for those who claim it, it would result in the lover helping the lovee in some tangible way, regardless of whether that other person was deserving or even liked. But regardless of the focus, for Paul, this kind of love wasn’t an emotion at all; instead, it was a decision. And you know, if this is a decision we’re willing to make, in other words, if we’re willing to treat those around us in a loving way, using the words of Paul, we’ll be displaying something more powerful and lasting than either faith or hope.