Motivated by Love

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading, titled Motivated by Love, was written by Karen Pimpo. Jim and Lanita were college sweethearts. They got married, and life was happy for many years.

Then Lanita began to act strangely, getting lost and forgetting appointments. She was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at 47. After a decade of serving as her primary caregiver, Jim was able to say, Alzheimer's has given me the opportunity to love and serve my wife in ways that were unimaginable when I said I do. While explaining the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul wrote extensively on the virtue of love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He contrasted rote acts of service with those overflowing from a loving heart. Powerful speaking is good, Paul wrote, but without love, it's like meaningless noise. If I give over my body to hardship that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Paul ultimately said the greatest gift is love. Jim's understanding of love and service deepened as he cared for his wife.

Only a deep and abiding love could give him the strength to support her every day. Ultimately, the only place we see this sacrificial love modeled perfectly is in God's love for us, which caused him to send Jesus to die for our sins. That act of sacrifice, motivated by love, has changed our world forever.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is 1 Corinthians chapter 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. 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. 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. Love is patient.

Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered.

It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

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.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 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. 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. And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for loving us so much that you would send your own son to live a sinless life, then bear the consequences of sin on our behalf. May our lives model that same kind of love for others today and every day. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening today. My name is Tony Collier and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.