Affirmation// The Way of Love
History’s most popular passage of love, rewritten in a first person affirmation
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Read time: ~4 min
I’m getting married! Well, it’s actually a week or so before, and I started writing my vows.
I’m thinking about what this milestone of marriage means to me...
The laughs and tears we’ll share together.
The commitment we'll adopt.
The love we'll nurture with each other.
In discussing how to structure our ceremony, we decided to include a famous scripture from my own translation describing the way love. Since then, I’ve updated the passage to be read from a first person perspective.
The aspiration is for love to become the defining characteristic of our lives.
If you caught my previous post on How I Use Affirmations to Start my Day with Intention, you may have been wondering what words I actually say in the practice.
This Scripture Affirmation serves both as a reminder of our foundation and pursuit my wife and I share with each other, but also how we aim to treat everyone - from our family, friends, strangers, and even those who seek to bring us harm.
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Affirmation Begins: 1 Corinthians 13
Blending: MSG | AMP | CJB | NLT | ESV | NET | Greek
Full time: (3:30) || 40s // 1:30 // 1:15
v1-3
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and possessed all knowledge,
If I could understand all of God’s secret plans and unfathomable mysteries making them plain as day,
or even If I have a faith that can move mountains,
But do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give everything I have to the poor, and even surrender my body to be burned as a martyr, I could boast about it;
But if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing and gotten nowhere.
[So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.]
v4-7
Love is [long enduring and never gives up, so I am] Patient.
Love is Kind, [so I care even more for others than for myself.]
Love is Not Jealous [so in humility, I trust in the Lord for peace.]
Love is Not Boastful [so I don’t brag on myself.]
Love is Not Proud [so I don’t arrogantly strut around with a swelled head.]
Love is Not Rude [so I don’t dishonor others.]
Love is Not Self-seeking [so I don’t insist on my own way.]
Love is Not Easily Angered [so in my frustration I do not sin.]
Love is Not Resentful [so I don’t pay attention to any thought, feeling, or action of a bad nature toward me.]
Love Does Not Rejoice at Injustice [so I don’t gloat over other people’s mistakes.]
Instead, Love takes Pleasure in the Victory and Blooming of Truth [so I rejoice with others when the truth wins out.]
[Love Never Gives Up, so I bear up under anything and everything that gets in my way.
Love Never Loses Faith, so I look for the best in every person.
Love’s Hope is Fadeless under all circumstances, so I never look back.
Love Endures Everything Without Weakening, so I preserve under misfortunes and hold fast to my faith in Christ.]
Love Always Protects, always Trusts, is always Hopeful, and Endures to the end through every circumstance.
Love Never Dies.
v8-13
Prophecies will pass on, and speaking in unknown languages will come to an end;
Special knowledge and understanding will reach their limit [and be superseded by truth].
[But Love Will Last Forever!]
We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete.
But when the time of completion comes, these partial things will be set aside.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. But when I grew up, I put my childish ways behind me.
For now, we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a blurry mirror, but then we shall see in reality with perfect clarity and face to face!
All that I know now is partial and incomplete,
But then I will see everything completely, just as God now sees me completely.
But for right now, [until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward becoming one]:
Trust Steadily in God,
Hope Unswervingly [with joyful and confident expectation],
and Love Extravagantly [as if by God himself]
But The Greatest of These is Love.
Next Steps:
💬👇 Reflecting on your own experience with love, what line or concept stood out to you? Any lingering questions, concerns, or compliments?
📚 Continued reading My Morning Affirmations: How I start my day with intention for additional affirmations and tips on How to Practice.
📅 Translation/ Affirmation written on: June 2014 & updated Feb 2019
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Today I felt upset about an issue of my husband. From your posting, "Love is patient." stood out to me the most. I think it is really not easy to be patient..
Something that stands out to me, is the poetic description of a future reality when the knowledge economy comes to an end - when language isn’t a barrier and we all share the same information - how would people interact with each other? The poets suggest this version of love is a currency we can put our trust in, something that will continue to last beyond our limits of time.