Week 03 · Love is what you do
Love That Acts
Read together: 1 Corinthians 13
Also read: 1 John 3:18 · Galatians 5:22-23
Paul never defines love by feeling. Every word he uses is a verb or a behavior. Love is what you do when you would rather not.
The heart of it
This chapter is read at weddings, but it was written to a church that was fighting. Paul had just spent two chapters on spiritual gifts, and then he says all of it is worthless without love. Gifts, knowledge, sacrifice, even faith that moves mountains, without love it profits nothing.
Read the list slowly and notice how ordinary it is. Suffers long. Is kind. Envieth not. Is not easily provoked. Thinketh no evil. Not one of these is a feeling. Every one of them is a decision you can make on a hard day.
The last line matters for a marriage: charity never faileth. The Greek is stronger than 'never fails.' It never falls, never collapses. Feelings rise and fall with sleep and stress and hormones. This kind of love holds.
What to notice
- Verses 1 through 3 are all about impressive people. Paul says impressive without love is empty.
- 'Is not easily provoked' names the short fuse. Marriage tests this daily.
- 'Thinketh no evil' includes keeping score. Love does not keep a ledger of offenses.
- 'Beareth all things, believeth all things' means love assumes the best about your spouse's motives instead of the worst.
Talk together
- 1Read verses 4 through 7 out loud, replacing 'charity' with your own name. Which word stings the most?
- 2Which of these does your spouse do well? Tell them specifically.
- 3Where are you easily provoked? What time of day, what topic, what tone?
- 4Are either of us keeping a running score? Name it out loud without defending yourself.
- 5What is one thing you could do this week that would feel like love to your spouse rather than what would feel like love to you?
Your own journal
Answer these on your own during the week. They are yours; you are never required to read them out loud.
1. Which line of 1 Corinthians 13 describes me the least? Give a real example from this month.
2. What score have I been keeping? Am I willing to tear it up before God?
3. When did I last do something for my spouse that cost me and no one saw?
4. What do I actually want when I am unkind: to be right, to be heard, to be left alone?
5. Ask God to grow one specific piece of this love in you and write what He brings to mind.
This week's practice
Each of you pick one line from verses 4 to 7 and deliberately practice it every day this week. Do not tell your spouse which one you chose until next week.
"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."
1 Corinthians 13:4
Pray together
Ask God for the kind of love that does not depend on how you feel. Confess where you have loved in word only.
Next week: Words That Build