A Daily Devotional with Pastor Doug Crouse  February 8, 2018  

What Love Is   Scripture Reading – 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 7 (NLT) “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.”  

People can so easily blurt out to someone those words saying, ‘I love you’, which really at times is a shallow statement of intent that may or may not amount to much at all. But what we see in today’s text truly is a deeper understanding of, ‘What Love Is’.

Love responds to others in a long-suffering way, demonstrating both patience and the same kindness that God has graced to our lives. Love rejoices in the accomplishments of others and carries itself with a humility that points to trusting in God. Love gives way to others living life to build bridges and build up people.

Love is not put off by things that would cause others to give up and lives with the aim to forgive others even as they have been forgiven by God. Love chooses to forget offences and believe, hope and pray for the best in other people’s lives.

Love does not find itself gossiping or reveling in the failures of others, but rather talking about those good things that reflect truthfulness, grace and the hand of God. When many others would call it quits, love keeps on keeping on. Love does not look at anything as being an impossibility or impassability, but believes that in and through Christ Jesus all things are possible. Love will not be moved by hard circumstances or situations, but continues hoping, helping and believing at all times.  

Prayer Father I come and bring all of my heart and life to You once again today. Make me more loving as I see it in these verses. Fill me each day with your grace that people would see Jesus in all that I do, I pray in His precious name.  

Memory Verse:  Matthew 7:12 NLT “___ to _______ _________ you would ______ them to do to you.”