Scripture Passage:
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogantor rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-13
Devotional Thought:
Paul’s description of love is so familiar it can lose its edge — read slowly, and it becomes a mirror rather than a wedding reading. Patient, kind, not envious, not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs. It’s a high bar, and none of us meet it perfectly. As you close out this week’s SOAP practice, let this be the love you ask God to keep forming in you.
S — Scripture: What verse or phrase stands out to you?
O — Observation: What does this say, and what does it mean? What does it reveal about God, about people, or about your own heart?
A — Application: What am I going to do because of what God said?
- Is there a sin to confess?
- Is there a command to obey?
- Is there an attitude to change?
- Is there a promise to trust?
P — Prayer: How will I respond to God? Let His Word shape your words back to Him.