Love (Part 2)

 1 Corinthians 13:5

It [love] is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

How do you measure up against this list?

I know I come up short on every one.

This verse could be summed up by saying, "Love is not selfish."  All of the attitudes listed here are birthed out of selfishness.  The interesting thing is when you see these qualities in other people: rudeness, self-seeking, easily angered, and keeping a record of wrongs, you can't stand it.  Those attitudes in others make you so angry.  Yet when you indulge them everyone is supposed to show you grace and give you the benefit of the doubt.

Imagine if you took this verse to heart just with the people you regularly claim to love- your family.  What if you stopped indulging the sinful selfishness which this verse exposes and stopped treating your spouse and children like this?  What if you actually loved (active verb) them with this definition of love?

Your life would drastically change if you started being considerate and stopped being rude.

Your life would be transformed if you started serving others and stopped seeking to serve yourself.

You would actually be respected if you exercised emotional intelligence and controlled your anger.

You would be set free if you stopped keeping a record of everyone else's wrongs.

Love is not any of these things.  If you are behaving this way towards anyone, you don't love them.  No matter what your mouth may claim...you don't.  

Which of these is your biggest weakness?  Fix it.  Start today to work on fixing it.  All of these attitudes are relationship killers.  You need to fix them because they are taking withdrawals from every one of your relationships everyday.  If you're not sure if you suffer from any of these ask the people around you.  Ask your spouse.  Ask your boss.  Ask your co-workers.  Give them permission to speak the truth and don't it take it personally.  Take it as feedback and let them know you are working to fix it.

How do you "fix it"?  Be intentional about fixing and building the most important relationship in your life: your relationship with Jesus.  Love is a fruit of faith.  You can't truly love other people if you are rejecting Jesus as your Savior.  

1 John 4:7-8

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

The way to build your relationship with Jesus is by reading and studying his Word daily.  Faith is created and strengthened through God's Word and the Sacraments (Baptism and Holy Communion).  To strengthen your faith you must be reading God's Word.  If you don't have faith in Jesus then you need to start reading God's Word (the Holy Bible) and be baptized so the Holy Spirit can work faith in your heart.  Only the Holy Spirit can change your heart so you can love like Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13.

This 1 Corinthians 13 love is the love that all Christians strive for, and all people long for because this is the way that God loves us.  He has demonstrated this love for us by offering his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Jesus loves us so much that he paid the price that we all deserve when he died on the cross.

1 John 4:9-10

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God bless

Jason Fredrick