PRAYER

Loving God, open our hearts today to receive Your Word. May You give us eyes to see people who need to be loved by us. Help us to understand how to show Your love to the people around us. Amen.

READING

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When 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 put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a 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.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

REFLECTION

Let me take you on a musical journey of love. Cheap Trick in 1977 speaks for a generation wanting to feel love with I Want You To Want Me . In 1984, the band Foreigner releases a song called, "I Want To Know What Love Is". In 1993, pop band Haddaway sang, "What is Love? ". On the cusp of the 2000s, the Backstreet Boys encapsulated the challenges of love by releasing "I Want it That Way " Cue in Adele in 2011 with the anthem of heartbreak in "Someone Like You ". Taylor Swift rounds us out in 2021 with soul-crushing heartbreak in the song "Coney Island". Love is a common theme in a lot of music because it is a universal feeling that all have experienced the highs and lows of. However, the love sung about in these songs only encapsulates a quarter of what love is.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called, The Four Loves (1960) and in it he divides love into four categories:

• Affection (Storge)

• Friendship (Philia)

• Romantic (eros)

• Charity (agape)

(For further reading on the subject check out: Four Types of Love)

Agape love is the type of love God has for us and we are to return back. It is (as the Scripture says) patient, kind, not rude, keeps no record of wrong, not irritable, rejoices in truth, never gives up, never loses faith, always hopeful and endures every circumstance. It is the ideal and perfect love. God is at the center of all things and therefore, love is at the center of all things because God is love. When we help others we must ensure our motives are loving, otherwise our acts are meaningless. The Scripture says, even if we gave everything to the poor but do not show love to others, then we gain nothing. First John 4:7-8 says, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (NIV). Friends, we know God and therefore, we know Love. May we act with love toward others.

LENT CHECK IN

Try making a playlist with your favourite songs

If interested, read C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves

Consider ways you can show love toward your (sibling/spouse/family member) this week, and try to do it!