For the coming month of February, our Good Word Fridays are going to focus on 1 Corinthians 13 and the verses that describe love. We’ll take a closer look at these verses and ponder what they’re trying to tell us about charity (which is synonymous with love in this chapter).

Today’s verse says that charity (or love) is longsuffering and kind.

Those of us who have given our lives to Christ know that this is true. How could God ever accept us with all our faults and weaknesses except He’s longsuffering and kind? An unloving God would simply cut us off after He’d had enough of our backsliding. But not our Lord Jesus. His patient love can peer a long way off into the horizon, and He is willing to wait while we figure things out.

None of us can ever be as patient or tender-hearted as Jesus was when He lived on earth. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take stock of how we’re doing in this area.

• Are we patient with those we love, or are we harder on them for some reason?
• Are we kind to those we love, or are we more inconsiderate of them for some reason?

We’ve received a love that is eternally patient and unwaveringly kind. Let’s try and give what we’ve been given to the best of our ability — especially to those we love most.

This article has undergone ministry review and approval.