Summary Statement – The Presidential Prayer Team

Let all that you do be done in love. – 1 Corinthians 16:14

If you have written a resumé or letter of application, you know the importance of a good summary statement! It is meant to reflect the key elements of the entire document in just a few words. Paul, the apostle and author of much of the New Testament, was a master at using words effectively and it is evident in his letters to beloved friends in the church at Corinth.

In the letter, he addresses difficult issues they were wrestling with—divisions and tension among leaders, lawsuits between believers, arrogance and selfishness, lack of generosity in fellowship, and ignorance of God’s word. In each scenario, Paul drew a direct line from the problem to the gospel of Christ, applying it specifically to the heart of the issue, “You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

Toward the end of the letter, he offers “a still more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31) to navigate a life of faith in a faithless society. Distilling his message to its finest point, he writes, “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). As mentor, pastor, friend, and guide, his letter closes with a simple summary statement advising believers to approach every situation, regardless of its complexity, first in love.

Living like Christ is as tall an order for people today as it was in Paul’s day. Pray for those in positions of authority in the United States to be moved by faith and motivated by love as they look for solutions to the challenging problems facing this diverse nation.

Today’s Verse: 1 Corinthians 16:14

Let all that you do be done in love.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: 1 Corinthians 13

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.