“Love…is not irritable.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 

Scripture reading: 1 Peter 2:21-25; Romans 8:28

Are you ever irritable? Maybe at certain times of the day (e.g. in the morning before you’ve had your coffee)? Maybe around certain people who annoy you? Maybe in certain circumstances (e.g. waiting in traffic)? Love is not irritable. If anything exposes our sin, it’s this. Let us repent of our irritableness! And in those moments when we feel irritable, let us pray for the Lord’s strength to love others with patience and gentleness.

Let us remember how patient and slow to anger God is with us in Christ. Let us remember that “nothing comes to us by chance, but by His fatherly hand” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 27). He has a good purpose behind all the irritating circumstances and people we encounter (Romans 8:28). That doesn’t mean we can’t try to change our circumstances. But, as Sinclair Ferguson puts it, “Only when we have yielded to the sovereign will of God, knowing that He will work everything together for our good, do we learn a healthy spiritual detachment from the irritations of life…The remedy for my irritability, therefore, will not be found in a determination to be less irritable, but only in a sense of the love of God for me, and in the trust in Him it produces.”

Jesus encountered many irritating people and circumstances. Yet, there was no irritability in Jesus. Thanks be to God that He never sinned, and died to save us from all our sins! Let us patiently love others in gratitude!

Suggestions for prayer

Confess your sins of irritableness to God and rest in the complete forgiveness of all your sins in Christ. Pray for the Spirit to produce the character of Christ in you so that you trust God’s good and sovereign will and are patient and loving towards others.

Rev. Brian Cochran is ordained in the United Reformed Churches in North America and has served as the pastor of Redeemer Reformation Church in Regina, SK, for 14 years. This month he starts a new call to Grace URC in Torrance, CA. Get this devotional delivered directly to your phone each day via our RP App. This devotional is made available by the Nearer To God Devotional team, who also make available in print, for purchase, at NTGDevotional.com.