A Love Checklist

I know it is cliché to write about the “love chapter” on Valentine’s Day.  I mean how many times have we heard it?  It was probably read at your wedding or nearly every wedding you have attended.  The pastor probably preached on this past Sunday as he does every Sunday around Valentine’s Day.  If you read blogs, I’m sure a plethora of bloggers will comment on this chapter at some point this week.  Does it feel to you that 1 Corinthians 13 is a little overplayed song on the radio?  I don’t know about you, but when I hear an overplayed song on the radio I quickly turn the station.  If I am honest I do the same when I read 1 Corinthians 13, I just glance over it and look for something new to inspire me.  

It may be cliche to write about the “love chapter” on Valentine’s Day, but it doesn’t negate the truth of the words or my need to hear them again.  Just like I don’t know all the words to the overplayed songs on radio, I don’t have all words telling me how to love in my heart and in my actions.  What if Adele sang “Do Everything,” by Stephen Curtis Chapman?  Would your ears perk up?  Would you pause to listen?  Would you hear the words in a new way?  What if you read a different version of 1 Corinthians 13? Would you join me today in reading the “love chapter” from the Amplified Bible?  Will you allow the Spirit to speak these words to you in a fresh way and to inspire you?  Will you allow the Spirit to show you areas where you can love better and to reveal to you again how great God is at loving you?

⁴Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.

⁵It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong].

⁶It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

⁷Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening].

              ⁸Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end].