Prayer For Love (1 Corinthians 13)

Gracious, Heavenly Creator and Sustainer,
We confess that we do not love as we ought.
We love ourselves more than you
and more than our neighbors.

We cling to our opinions as truths
and we feed the politics of division,
hungry for power and full of comfort.

Wake us from our slumber, Gracious God.

You tell us in the Scriptures that

If we speak in the tongues of men or angels,
but do not have love,

We are nothing more than resounding gongs or clanging cymbals.
God, turn our noise into music.

If we have the gift of prophecy or can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if we have faith that can move mountains,
but do not have love,

We are nothing.
God, remind us that no one cares how much we know until they know how much we care.

If we give all we possess to the poor,
and give our bodies to hardship that we may boast,
but do not have love,

We gain nothing.

God, help us to listen to you. For you have told us what Love is like:

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor 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.

God, help us to be people made and shaped by Love.
God, help us to make your priorities our own.
For 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 we were children, we talked like children,
We thought like children and reasoned like children.

But as we matured, we put they ways of childhood behind us.

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror,
but someday we will see face to face.

For now, we only understand in part
But someday we will know fully,
even as we are known.

And now, these three remain: faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

Gracious God, we give ourselves to You,
to be remade in the image of Love.
We ask for the power of the Holy Spirit
that we may be transformed into your image.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

Amen.