1 Corinthians 13:7
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Review the first 6 verses of 1 Corinthians 13 before adding on the new one. Now repeat it over and over, phrase by phrase if necessary.
John MacArthur.....
This is the first of glorious positives. Love bears all things. It means to cover with silence, to cover with silence. Love suppresses. It doesn’t mean that love puts up with anything, we’ve already said that. It doesn’t mean that love won’t confront, love is truthful. But what it does mean is that out of genuine, passionate, honest, legitimate concern for the value of another person for the real worth of that other person, love will do everything it can to cover the weakness...cover the failing, to cover the sin.....
Love is not suspicious, it just believes the best. It is not suspicious. It is not always eager to pounce and denounce some offender, always suspicious, always assuming the worst. It doesn’t go through life with cynical suspicion, it goes through life believing the best because love seeks the best so strongly....
love hopes all things. As long as the grace of God is operative in the person, you never give up.....And what is that hope in? Not in the person but in the Lord. As long as the grace of God is operative, human failure is never final.....
Love endures all things.... endures means to sustain. It’s a quality that sustains a soldier in the face of violent battle. This is not minor annoyance here. It’s not the word. This is a word for life and death, horrible opposition, violence, persecution, suffering. Love survives all that. It just doesn’t die, never really gives up. It endures through everything.....This is the crescendo of love. Love bears all hurts and wounds and disappointments, believing the best about others in spite of the wounds, gently throwing a mantle over their faults. And when the believing is betrayed, love still hopes because God is still God. And when hope seems lost, love still endures with triumphant confidence that the God who is still God is still sovereign and still able. Love just holds on. Love is never totally overwhelmed, never, no matter how many disappointments...It can be wounded to the bone, but it will endure...
This is how we should be known. This is how we should live. How can I apply it in my life? Acknowledge it as a command, agree that you have the capacity from God to love this way. Understand that it’s not the unusual kind of Christian living but the norm. Realize that it is the Spirit’s work and go do it.
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