SEPTEMBER 18, 2026

  "4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

― 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-7

ECCLESIASTES 4-6

10Whoever loves money never has enough;

whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.

This too is meaningless.

11As goods increase,

so do those who consume them.

And what benefit are they to the owners

except to feast their eyes on them? (5:10-11)

2 CORINTHIANS 10

17But, “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”^b18For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.

JOURNAL 

The more I learn, the more I realize that contentment begins when I stop asking the world to tell me who I am. Money, achievement, recognition, possessions, and even the approval of people can never finally satisfy me. Ecclesiastes keeps returning to this truth. There will always be another accomplishment, another possession, another person's opinion to chase. If I need those things to tell me that I am enough, I will never have enough.

The same is true of love. One of the traps I continually fall into is wanting other people to love me in exactly the way I need to be loved. When I begin looking to people for affirmation, reassurance, or validation, something changes in me. Instead of simply loving them, I begin measuring what I am receiving from them. I keep score. I interpret their actions. I become disappointed when they fail to provide something they were never capable of providing perfectly.

Maybe one of the great freedoms of accepting God's love is that I can finally let other people off the hook.

First Corinthians 13 becomes different when I read it this way. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not self-seeking. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love always hopes and always perseveres. Instead of reading those words primarily as a description of the love I should receive, I can read them as a description of the love I am called to give. I do not have to spend my life searching for someone who will love me this way. I can spend my life learning, through God, to become this kind of love.

Jesus demonstrates this better than anyone. He loved people who misunderstood him, questioned him, betrayed him, abandoned him, and ultimately crucified him. His ability to love was not dependent upon their response. He knew who he was and whose he was. That allowed him to give without requiring the people around him to establish his worth.

Perhaps this is another part of surrender. I can surrender my need to be noticed, affirmed, appreciated, or understood. My responsibility is not to control what comes back to me. My responsibility is to receive God's love and faithfully give it away.

And when two people are doing that, something sacred happens. Two imperfect people, neither demanding that the other fill what only God can fill, become conduits of the same grace they have received. That can happen in a church, but it can also happen in a classroom, on a football field, around a dinner table, in a difficult conversation, or between two friends.

Maybe that is part of what Jesus meant when he said, "where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them." The presence of God is not confined to a building. It becomes visible wherever his love is being received and then freely given away.

20For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

MATTHEW 18