Keep no record

In the movie The Princess Bride, the marriage of Princess Buttercup is officiated in an amusing way. 'Mawwiage!' says the celebrant. 'Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, tru wuv will fowow you foweva...' Many people think love is a 'wuvvy duvvy dweam wifin a dweam'. They don't know how much of a challenge love can be.

Today's verse, 'Love keeps no record of being wronged' (1 Corinthians 13:4-5 NLT), is from the 'love passage' that's often read out at Christian weddings. It's a smack in the face of shallow love: it will be pretty hard to forget every hurt or dumb thing done against us. That's the challenge of today's verse. And it's not only for weddings.

Read it again: 'Love keeps no record of being wronged.' God challenges us to forget the hurt and wrongdoing done to us by everyone (yes, even our enemies). Put it this way - if Jesus kept a long record of how much we hurt him and hurt others, we'd be in big trouble. So he doesn't keep any record. But we're not Jesus, and we protect our pride. Still...God's challenge to forget other people's hurtful actions means we have to give up that pride.



So what now? What records are you keeping? Easy way to find out: do you often think about the wrong things people have done to you? Those are your records. Write these wrongs in a list, offer them to God, then tear up the list.





— SCRIPTURE —

'Love...keeps no record of being wronged.' 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 NLT
— SOULFOOD —

Hos 11-14, Luke 20:1-19, Ps 55:1-11, Pro 8:17-18