Love is patient; love is kind | News, Sports, Jobs - The Sentinel - Lewistown Sentinel

Since Valentine’s Day is celebrated this month, I thought it would be appropriate to write on the subject of love. One writer said, “If there is anything better than to be loved, it is to love.”

I believe that love is the greatest commodity of life. Our text in v.13 says love is the greatest. But what does it mean to love?

You can find books written about love, songs and poems about love and enter into discussions about love. But if you haven’t studied I Corinthians 13:4-7 I surmise that you will fall short of love for here is the most complete definition of love ever penned. Here God gives us 15 descriptions of true love. They are 15 verbs that describe love. And might I add that they will be painful for many of us because these properties of love are painted against the canvas of our own failings.

We all need to learn how to love better in the church and in the home, don’t we?

Number 1: Love is patient. This not a word that concerns itself with circumstances or events, it concerns itself with people. It is the ability to be wronged and wronged again and though you have the power to retaliate, it never crosses your mind. It means to have a long-fuse, to be long tempered. It is one of the fruits of the spirit. No vengeance, no bitterness, no animosity, no fighting back. Can you imagine what our homes and church would be like if we were all patient. I know what you are thinking; you don’t know what that person did to me. He has wronged me again and again. Yes he or she has but could not God say the same thing about you? In a biography of Lincoln, I read of an outspoken opponent named Stanton who said of Lincoln, “it is ridiculous for people to go to as far away as Africa to find a gorilla when they already found one in Springfield, Illinois. When it came time to choose a war minister Lincoln chose Stanton because he said he was the best man for the job. On the night of the assignation, as Lincoln laid on his deathbed, there stood Stanton and speaking through tears said, “There lay the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen.”

Stanton did not always agree with Lincoln’s politics, but he could not resist his patience. God is patient. Are you patient with those whom God has called on you to love?

Number 2: Love is kind. Understand, patience endures the injuries of others but kindness pays them back with good deeds. The root of the word kindness is “useful.” It is love in action, doing what is useful for the one you love. It is grace that helps heal a wound. It is grace to heal a hurt. It is like the song says, “Killing him softly with kindness.”

Number 3: Love is not jealous. Sometimes it is translated envy. There are two kinds of jealousy. One is superficial and the other is deep down. Superficial jealousy says I want what you have. The deeper jealousy says I wish you didn’t have it. Interestingly, the root of the word means to boil. Inner boiling over someone else’s success. I think we would all agree that jealousy is destructive. Eve wanted to be like God and jealousy spawned her sin. Cain killed Abel because of jealousy. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery because of jealousy. The brother of the prodigal son was angry when his father received his son because of jealousy. James says jealousy is demonic. Every evil work is spawned out of envy and jealousy. But love can’t be jealous. Love wants the person they love to succeed.

Number 4: Love doesn’t brag. Love is not boastful and the next statement is that it is not arrogant or proud. The first means to verbalize it and the second refers to an attitude. The word brag comes from the word windbag referring to the hot air that comes out of an arrogant person’s mouth. Love never blows its own horn. Love keeps us from flaunting our knowledge, our ability, our education, our gifts, ourselves.

Number 5: Love is not arrogant. It means to be puffed up or conceited. It is the deepest of conceit. Conceit says I know better, love says I want your opinion. Is it not true that empty trucks make the most noise? Love is not big-headed but big-hearted.

Number 6: Love does not act unbecomingly or dishonor others. Love says your happiness matters to me so I will do what makes you happy. Unbecoming is totally self-centered. Love is engrossed in asking how do my words affect the one I love. Do they hurt or heal. Do they warm their spirit or wound it?

Number 7: Love does not seek its own. Linski said, “Cure yourself of selfishness and you will have repainted the Garden of Eden. It is a portrait of unselfish eyes. Does not the Bible say bear one another’s burdens? It means to live for someone else. To have someone else to live for. Love never seeks its own but seeks ways to please the one they love.

Number 8: Love is not easily provoked or angered. This is a tough one, is it not? Love never, never gets upset, is never irritated, never ready for a fight. Why do people get angry and say things to wound others? Because they want to and choose to do so. Love is the cure for irritability. Maybe it is true what Johnathan Edwards said, “The grace of God can live with some people with whom no one else could ever live with.” I know, we all lose our temper but it is all over in a minute. Well, so is the atom bomb. How many of us have said things we regret in the passion of anger. And we have all, heard or given the excuses for our outbursts. You made me mad. You said this, You did that. You, you, you. It wasn’t them that made you mad, it was you allowing yourself to be provoked. The point is that a temper never loves.

Number 9: Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. The word is an accounting word meaning to keep a mathematical calculation. At times used of a book keeper’s ledger. Why do you write things in a book? So you don’t forget them. Some people keep a record of the wrong done to them. But love forgives and forgets. It is the same word used of a pardoning God. God has not kept any books on my sins so I am not to keep books on other peoples sins. God has no resentment. He has been offended by me over and over again and only offers absolute forgiveness. Why? Because God so loves me. Do you keep records and then reread them, reiterate them, brood over them until that molehill of an offense becomes a mountain of hostility? On a Polynesian island there is a tribe of natives who keep reminders of their hatred toward someone by hanging articles of clothing or objects that represent the person that offended them. Isn’t that just silly? But maybe it is not so incredible to say that most of us have some of that stuff hanging in our minds. Love always forgives and never keeps account of a wrong suffered. Do you love like that?

Number 10: Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. How do people rejoice over sin? They brag about it, they are happy when someone sins so that they might look better than the guy that sinned, or they simply gossip about it. Love doesn’t parade anyone’s evil. Love seeks to gently cover over another’s faults and takes no delight in exposing them to others. Grandville Walker wrote, “There are times when silence is golden. Times when you have to stand up regardless of the consequences to challenge the evils of our times. Those are the times that to not do anything is a form of cowardice. But there are those times that silence is golden, when to tell the truth is to make many hearts bleed needlessly and nothing is accomplished and everything is hurt by a loose tongue.” Love never rejoices over what affronts God and harms a sinner.

Number 11: Love rejoices with the truth. Love isn’t a feeling or an attitude but obedience to God’s word. Love rejoices when the truth is taught and lived. Now watch this. Love not only doesn’t parade around the evil someone does but finds the good in that person and talks about that. Too many of us husbands and wives spend too much time talking about the things we don’t like about our mates instead of the good things. Love finds the best in a person and exalts that. Love allows people to blossom in the warm rays of encouragement. Love builds people up.

Number 12: Love bears all things. The primary meaning of to bear means to cover with silence or to suppress. That doesn’t mean love puts up with anything or that love can be pushed around but what it does mean is that love, out of regard or respect and an honest concern for the real value of a person will do everything it can to cover up and suppress the sin of that person. Genuine love will not drag a scandal in front of others. Love throws a blanket over someone else’s faults. Love covers a multitude of sins. Yes love will warn, exhort, rebuke, discipline, but in doing so covers not exposes. God loves us and he is not having heavenly discussions about our sin, we are not the subject of heavenly gossip. Instead, he sends Christ to cover our sins. Love never exploits, exposes or condemns. It throws a blanket over it, carries the burden of it, even takes the blame for it and if necessary accept the punishment and suffers for someone else’s sin.

Number 13: Love believes all things. Instead of suspecting, instead of being eager to denounce the offender, instead of saying they are getting what they deserve, love believes in the best of someone else. Yes it sees the weakness but it is willing to throw a blanket over that weakness and believe the best. Love believes because love cares too much to not believe. When you love someone and everything seems to be going wrong, can you still think the best about them? People that don’t love, even when they can’t find a fault will keep looking for one. But what if after believing things never seem to change?

Number 14: Love hopes all things. When you run out of faith, hang onto hope. Hope says nothing is too hard for God. Love is hopelessly optimistic. Love refuses to take failure as a final. God never gave up on Israel. Jesus never gave up on Peter. And love never gives up on the one you love. Many a husband and wife have held on with nothing more than a cord of hope. I read of a dog that got lost in a large airport. He was cared for by airport personnel and lived there for 5 years waiting or his master to return. The remarkable thing about the story was that when he was not eating or drinking the dog always went to the same corner of the airport and laid there because that corner was the last place he saw his master. Certainly if the attachment of a dog to his master could allow that kind of faithful hope, certainly love could be produced in us to wait and wait and wait in hope.

Number 15: Love endures all things. The word endure is a military term and has to do with being positioned in the middle of a battle in a very violent situation. It is not referring to those little minor annoyances which we all have to endure. It is talking about incredible opposition. It is Stephen lying on the ground having his life crushed out with stones and saying, Father forgive them, do not hold this against them. It is Jesus on the cross bearing our sins enduring the sarcasm and spittle and as he died says Father forgive them. Love never fails. That is the 15 functions of love. It was painful wasn’t it? Are you a Christian? Hasn’t the love of God been shed abroad in your heart? Then what keeps you from loving? To live by love takes the most discipline, the most commitment and the most faith of anything I ever discovered in the Bible. God wants us to be characterized by love. He wants our homes to be filled with love and he wants our church to be filled with love. When the world looks at us what do we want them to see? God wants them to say Oh how they loved one another.

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The Rev. Dr. James Barnes is currently the pastor of White Memorial Church in Milroy.

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