What Love Is…What Love is not

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Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)

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

Devotion:

            In this scripture passage we see Paul attempting to define love in terms of what it is and what it is not. What love affirms and what it rejects. These comparisons and contrasts are useful to the Christian today because our culture has so perverted the meaning of the word love that these characteristics of love are barely recognizable. The word love has along with most everything else, has been sexualized. Our culture has so ruined the word love that we as Christians almost need a new word that conveys the meanings Paul gives for it in today’s passage.

            Let us briefly review what Paul says in this short paragraph about the much-abused word love. First, Paul states that love is patient and kind. Here he is trying to help us to see that love always seeks the good of others. Then Paul lists four things that love is not. Envy, boasting, arrogance, and rudeness all stand as examples of what love is not. Today’s culture often makes what Paul here proclaims as negative as positive. All people, however, should be able to see these positive and negatives are what Paul claims them to be. True attributes of love.

            Turning to the next verse we see Paul claiming that love does not insist on having its own way, love is not irritable or resentful. These descriptors portray love as being accommodating of others. The portrait of love here is not as weak, but as strong yet flexible enough to look out for its neighbors. Love challenges us to live in a self-sacrificial way.

            Love is not happy about wrongdoing, but always seeks for truth in its relationship with the world. Our culture today too often celebrates those things which are considered sin by the Bible. We no longer honor the good, the true, and the beautiful. Instead, we elevate sin, lies, and ugliness. Our love has been cheapened and degraded to the point it is almost sinful to call it love.

            Paul then concludes this paragraph with a list of four positive attributes of Biblical Love. These include bearing all things, believing all things, hope in all things, and enduring all things. How wonderful would the world be if all people exhibited this kind of love. It would be a wonderful world indeed. Let us go before the throne of grace to petition the Lord for the grace and power to love in the way Paul describes in this passage.

Prayer:

            Lord, hear us when we come to you with our requests. We praise you for leading the apostle Paul to proclaim true love for us in this chapter of 1st Corinthians. We stand convicted of being less than loving according to these words. Forgive our sin and lead us to become more committed to loving in the ways we have been meditating upon. Help us to live as people of love and compassion toward our world. Let us be models of your love and grace for all to see. Amen. 

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