Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion Premier

1 Corinthians 14:1
1 Corinthians 13 is a really famous chapter and rightly so. But Paul didn’t write in chapters. Chapter divisions arrived about 1,200 years later! So, whenever we see a chapter division, we need to, at least, peer at what happens next. If you only looked at chapter 13
you might think that love is so important that you can forget about the gifts of the Spirit. After all, they have got a limited shelf life, as Paul has just explained. But at the start of chapter 14 he makes it plain that we all need to make love the goal of our lives and, at the same time, seek after the wonderful gifts that the Holy Spirit wants to give us.
The church in Corinth had got into a horrible muddle about spiritual gifts and Paul is trying to straighten them out. Their meetings had become totally disorganised and unhelpful, with people trying to outdo one another as they used their gifts. Paul is eager to give them some clear rules so that they will start appreciating the gifts that God has given them, and use them in a way that will build up the whole church.
Churches can still slip up today. As much as we love the Lord, we still trip over our selfishness and idiosyncrasies, so it is vital that we keep focused on Paul’s wise words. We must continually ensure that we make love our goal, as well as also eagerly seeking after the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Question
What gift has God given you to build up the Church?
Prayer
Thank you Lord for the gifts that you have given to your Church. Help me to use my own gift enthusiastically and wisely so that it will help to build your Church. Amen

1 Corinthians 13:8,13
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like throwing things away. I am writing this on a new laptop, but I hung on to the last one for as long as possible. It was starting to run very slowly, and sometimes didn’t want to start at all. I was prepared to concede that it had good days and bad days, but, in the end, I had to admit that I was devoting too much of my life to waiting for it to spring into action. Of course, all our possessions have a limited life. Our cars, our microwaves, our beds, our desks and even our homes don’t last for ever.
The same principle exists in the spiritual realm as well. Our spiritual gifts are a wonderful blessing but they come to an end. Speaking in tongues, prophecy, preaching and words of knowledge are all amazing gifts of God, but the day will come when they are silent. There will be no more need for them. However, some things do last for ever. Paul lists them as faith, hope and love. But one shines above them all – love.
Isn’t it a wonderful thought that the love that we show day by day never comes to an end? It is a reflection of God’s eternal nature and so every time we reach out to another person and truly love them we are sharing in the stream of his eternal love. We need that reminder because loving is often painful and unnoticed and sometimes even rejected. However, there is nothing more important that we can ever do than love.
Question
In what way are you encouraged by the fact that love never ends?
Prayer
Thank you Lord that your love never ends. Help me to devote more of my life to sharing the eternal gift of love. Amen

1 Corinthians 13:11-12
When I was about four years old I can recall being very confused when I met new people. I presumed that they had just been made, because I had never seen them before! I had recently realised that people die – probably because one of my grandfathers died at around that time. I came up with a theory that God took the bits of dead people and used them to make the new people that I had just met. It was all very logical and, in its way, quite impressive. It just happened to be wrong!
When we are children, our minds struggle to understand the world around us and that’s absolutely fine. But if I had told you that it is still my view that God makes people out of those who have passed away you wouldn’t think that was fine at all. You would, in your kindness, feel desperately sorry for me and, I trust, start praying for me.
Our thinking and speaking changes as we get older. Many things that were a complete mystery to us as children are no longer mysterious. But, however old we are, we are still on a journey towards understanding, as we all have a lot more to learn.
We need to draw two conclusions from this. Firstly, we need to be humble. We might know a lot, but we don’t know everything. God hasn’t revealed the whole truth to us, so we need to look at every day as an adventure in which we learn a little more about ourselves, our world and God. And secondly, we need to be excited by the thought that one day we will understand the whole picture.
Question
What new things have you learned about God over the last month?
Prayer
Lord God our Father, thank you that you are constantly revealing more of yourself to me. Amen

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
I am sure that you have often heard these famous words. They give us the most beautiful description of love and, understandably, they are often read at weddings. Love sounds incredibly attractive doesn’t it? We all long to be as loving as this. But the problem is that no amount of human effort will enable us to be. The only way to show perfect love is by enabling God to work through us. Hard as we might try, we will never succeed in being truly loving without God’s daily strength.
The way to become more loving is to focus more on God. As we get to know God better, and allow our lives to be shaped by him, his love will naturally flow through us. There will be no stopping it! Living in God’s way of love will shape every part of life from the moment we wake up. It will affect the way in which we greet people in the morning. It will guide our prayers for the people we see on the way to work. It will colour our relationship with our families, colleagues and friends. We will, without thinking about it, be seeking the very best for them all. When we meet people in need we will naturally reach out to them and seek to help. We won’t have time to do much thinking about love because we will be so
busy loving.
Question
Which of Paul’s descriptions of love do you find most challenging?
Prayer
Lord God, thank you that you have always shown me perfect love. Help me to get to know you better so that your love will constantly flow from my life. Amen

1 Corinthians 13:1
I will never forget Sheila. She was in her early 70s when I first met her and, every Friday evening without fail, she helped out with her church’s youth club. The church was on a rough estate and the evenings were full of action. The young people were rarely appreciative and, at times, violent. The language they used was normally rude and often deeply offensive. And yet, Friday after Friday, Sheila would faithfully go and support the youth club with the hope that it might be a blessing to the young people and possibly even lead them closer to finding faith in Jesus. I only know one word that would explain why someone would act in that way – love. Sheila truly loved those young people and nothing would stop her seeking to help them.
I’ve started with a personal example because we all know how to speak and sing about love, but the real test is whether we can turn our words into action. In this amazing chapter on love, Paul draws the picture of a person who seems to have collected every spiritual gift. This person is not just a great preacher but the best ever. Their knowledge has no limits and their prophetic gift is so great that they can unpick every mystery they face. On top of all of that they have faith that can move mountains around. To cap it all, their commitment to their faith is so complete that they don’t think twice about offering themselves as a martyr. What an amazing person! But Paul adds that even if all of those things are true of you, if you have no love then your life is just a lot of hot air.
Love needs to take first place in our lives. Our God of love longs for us to reflect his love to the world.

Question
Who has shown you the most powerful example of love?
Prayer
God of love I worship you. Help me to reflect your love to those I meet today. Amen

1 Corinthians 12:14,16-17
I love Paul’s sense of humour! He imagines a conversation going on within the body that is plainly ridiculous.
It would be crazy if the ear were to complain that it wasn’t a proper part of the body because it wasn’t an eye. But, funny as it is, Paul is making a very serious point. He is talking about inferiority complexes - and they get everywhere. Many people in churches look down on themselves. Some think they don’t count because they are only a Sunday school teacher, or only a cleaner or only a newcomer. Paul wants to make it clear that, so far as God is concerned, there are no ‘only’ people in the Church. Every single person is vital.
Paul recognises that there is another problem as well – having a superiority complex, which is just as absurd. Paul imagines the eye saying to the hand: “I don’t need you” and the head saying to the feet: “I don’t need you” (v21). Not only would it be offensive for the parts of the body to talk to one another like that, but it would also be absolutely wrong – the eye does need the hand, the head does need the feet! In every organisation there tends to be a pecking order, so you can easily identify who is seen as the most powerful and important and who is seen as the least. But Paul protests that in the Church, just like in the body, everyone is absolutely crucial. We need to learn to treasure and value everybody, because God has placed them within the Church, and without them it would be unable to function.
Question
Have you ever suffered from an inferiority complex or a superiority complex? If so, how does this passage help you?
Prayer
Lord, help me to value the members of my church in the way that you do. Amen