Devotions-21-Aug-2025
Fjeldberg – Devotion for August 21st, 2025
READ (1 Corinthians 13:1-8a)
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.
REFLECT
Love is…
I was recently reading the book A Light from Heaven by Jan Karon. In it a Pastor is putting up a saying on his church’s sign and it begins “Love is …” You are left to ponder that for a while. I started thinking of all the things love is and what the world would be like if we did all those things. First Corinthians 13 gives us a lot of things that “Love is”. What do we think love is in our lives? You can make your own list.
Love is …
• Hugs
• The joy shared by children
• Encouraging words
• A smile for a stranger
• Prayer
The above are quite easy to do, however, Love also is, according to Jesus,
• Accepting, loving and caring for our neighbors
• Feeding the hungry
• Clothing those who are in need
• Caring for those in prison
• Caring for the sick
• Caring for the foreigner
• Forgiving those who have wronged us
• Asking for forgiveness from those we have wronged.
Those are much harder to put into practice.
Later in the book we see the rest of that church sign: “Love is an act of endless forgiveness.” Why? Because God loved us so much that He gave His Only, Beloved Son, Jesus Christ so we could have endless forgiveness. God knows we will never be perfect and will mess up royally, but He still loves each of you and He loves me. Thanks be to God! Amen. Go share the Good News and God’s Love!
PRAY
Thank you, God, for your endless love and forgiveness. Guide my daily life and help me to live all the things “Love is…” In the name of Your Precious Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Devotions by Jan N.