Day 1 of 30
SampleWhat love is
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
Reflection · written by AI
This chapter gets read at weddings, but Paul wrote it to a church full of people who were arguing with each other. It is less a poem about romance and more a description of what love does when people are difficult.
Read the list slowly. Love is patient and kind. It doesn't envy or boast. It keeps no account of wrongs. Almost every phrase describes a choice made in a moment of friction: when you could snap, keep score, or insist on your own way.
It can be humbling to put your own name where the word love appears and see how it reads. That isn't meant to crush you. This is first a portrait of how God loves you, and the love you are asked to give is love you have already been given.
Write about it
Which phrase in this chapter is hardest for you right now in the relationship that is on your mind? Why that one?
A prayer for today · written by AI
Lord, You have been patient and kind with me. You have not kept a record of my wrongs. I want to love like that, and I often don't. Show me the one place today where I can choose patience over being right. Fill me with the love I can't produce myself. Amen.