Saturday 4th April Message

Saturday 4th April Message
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April 04, 2020
in Minister's Daily Message
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Dear Reader

Most mornings these days I have to check what day it actually is. Today doesn’t feel like a normal Saturday and for that matter, all the other day are kind of weird as well.  Quite apart from ‘social distancing ‘, I’m experiencing the effects of social deprivation (lack of personal contact), how about you?
There is a saying that says ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’.   It does, but by contrast, however, I believe that for some people, being cooped up day after day with the same folk will be the cause of many a household bust-up. Rather than growing, fonder many will find the reverse.
Isn’t it the case that we feel/think that we can talk to and treat our families in ways we would never do or say to anyone else? Those closest to us see us, sometimes, at our best and at other times they see us at our very worst. That’s family life for you unless your name happens to be ‘Walton’.
I visited the ‘Cavern’ in Matthew Street, Liverpool recently, the musical hub of what became the famous ‘Mersey Sound’ and I loved it. It’s not a particularly prominent den from the outside but inside is a different matter. It has a tremendous atmosphere and I was enthralled by the thought of the many famous acts who performed there over the years. Performers still play there.  It’s not a dead museum. Think of any band you like and I bet they’ll have either visited or played at the famous club.
The songs ‘ All you need is Love’ and ‘Give peace a chance’  have been ‘playing’ in my mind and there is something powerful in the lyrics. Everyone has their own tastes in music of course, and I know for sure that we don’t all like the same things. One thing that many songs do have in common though, is the use of the word ‘love’.  Take the word ‘love’ out of the songs you enjoy and consider what you would put in its place.
Paul, in what is one of the best know bible passages, tells us what love is and what love is not. How do we measure up in the description of what it means to love?
God is love.
Today I ask you to think/meditate on the passage from Corinthians.
God bless you!

Jim

Revd James Boag

1 CORINTHIANS 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 dishonour 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.

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