Day 1: The obvious place to start...

When we start to think about love and what the Bible has to say about it, one of the first passages to come to most people's mind would be 1 Corinthians 13.  Even if we had very little knowledge of Jesus, it is likely that we would have heard this passage read at a wedding, and because of this, we can easily make the mistake of thinking this passage is for married couples.  Paul wrote the letter to the whole church about how we should treat each other – this is the love that Jesus commands us to live.  This passage suggests to us that love is an action we can practice rather than a warming feeling or changeable emotion.  Let’s take time as we start this journey to dwell on the whole chapter, and let it affect the way in which we Love 40 days.  It might not be easy – but this is the chapter to guide our first steps...

If I could speak all the languages of earth and angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood al of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.  If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

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.  Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless.  But love will last forever!  Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!  But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.  But when I grew up, I put away childish things.  Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.  All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.

For the kids:
Sit down together and come up with a list of words that describe love.  What did you come up with?  Have a look at your list together with the list from 1 Corinthians 13 - taken from a letter Paul wrote to one of the early churches.  This is a great passage in the Bible that tells us what love is really like:

• Patient
• Kind
• Not jealous
• Not proud or boastful or showing off
• Not rude
• Not trying to get your own way
• Not irritable, cross or easily annoyed
• Happy when the truth is told
• Never gives up
• Never stops believing
• Always hopes
• Lasts through every challenge and change

Did you come up with any of the same things?  Talk together about whether this sort of love is easy or hard to do and encourage each other to ask God to help us - then look for opportunities to love like this.