We are all familiar with I Corinthians 13. It is not an isolated chapter about love without any relevancy to the rest of the book. It is related to a chapter previous to it, which enumerates the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the chapter following, which gives the guidelines for the exercise of the vocal gifts of the Holy Spirit in the church.
The thirteenth chapter has significance, for it is speaking not of the mechanics of the gifts of the Spirit but the love of God that must permeate both the one who ministers the gift and the gift itself. Paul wrote, And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. I Corinthians 13:2. So we see how essential love is.
But let us begin to define love. Sometimes love can be such a vague thing that we do not understand it, and we do not know how to move in it.
I Corinthians 13:4–8 gives a beautiful definition of love: Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things (or covers all things), believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.…
This message will help you examine the measure and quality of your own love. I John 4:19 says, We love, because He first loved us. That does not mean that God loved us and so we decide I’ll love God too.”
The love of God is creative; it works by impartation. When He loves you, that very love becomes a part of your being, and you do not love Him back in response with a human love, but you love Him back with His own love, the love He first put within you. It may not be the same quantity or depth of love, but it is the same kind of love. It is a divine love, inspired and created within your heart, and with this you love God back again.
With that idea in mind we can say, love is patient. It means there is no time limit on love. You never say you will love your brother until he reaches a certain degree of evil in his life. Love is patient; it does not allow you to have a certain time when you say, “Now I have had my fill. From now on, no more love.” Real love has no exasperation level because it is a patient love. We have called it the fruit of the Spirit, longsuffering (Galatians 5:22–23). Longsuffering is the endurance of love. It never grows tired though circumstances may be very provoking.
Love is kind is the next point. The reason it is kind is because love always focuses on the other person’s need and circumstances, and not on yourself. You are unkind only when you are relating a certain circumstance to yourself.
Someone else’s action may be sarcastic, and if you are without love you respond with sarcasm. On the other hand, someone can be very sarcastic to you, but if you are concerned about him you realize that he has a problem (he may be trying to prove a great big point), so you respond with a kindness, which means the end of the battle. Love does not have that quality in it that retaliates in a like manner, because it is kind. This is something we must realize.
The little things are what really count when you deal with love. It is in the little things that our kindness shows through. How much people stand or fall by the way you respond to them!
Whenever I meet any of the brethren in church or on the street, or even a stranger, I am careful to acknowledge him. I am not in a bondage to it, but it has become natural to my nature; I do not want to be acting out of character nor do anything that will cause another person to stumble.
I am speaking not so much of offenses that are deliberate, but of the things that come through negligence, because you are thoughtless, or not concerned enough to be alert to the other person. You must always be thinking about the other person, because love is kind. I could walk into a church absentmindedly and pass six or eight people who are looking at me as I go up to the platform. If I do not look at them, if I do not give them any recognition, I may be depriving them of the one thing they may need more than any thing else.
Love does not have to lay hands on a person, prophesy over him, and do a great miracle for him. Many times all the person needs is the deep, kind expression that love brings. When you tell a husband and wife to love each other, it could mean a thousand things. It could mean they should be well adjusted in the bedroom, or they should agree over financial matters at the first of the month, or they should be very careful to maintain a good rapport between themselves, especially in the image that they present to the world. But if you tell a husband and wife to be tenderhearted and kind one to another, then you have covered something that reaches down to the basic roots of what love is really all about.
It also says that love is not jealous. This means love does not selfishly possess, but it relates to another person with trust. Jealousy always takes away from the purity of love. When we are jealous, we selfishly try to possess another person. It may be because in our own insecurity we feel that our relationship to another person must be possessive; we think we are not being loved if we cannot possess the one we love. This is not true.
We must relate with trust, the kind of trust that accepts the love of another person with faith. Even if there seems to be some slight reasonable cause to doubt that love, love has to reach through with a basic trust.
Everyone seems to carry something in the image he or she presents to others that does not seem to be wholly trustworthy.
You cannot be jealous. Jealousy has too many roots and responses that are in the carnal mind and the human nature. You must love a person and therefore determine that you will not be jealous over him. Jealousy can be over a place. I have seen people who were concerned about their own place so much that they became jealous when another person had a ministry or place they did not have. They thought it might rival their own place. Love must accept love, and it must give love; it cannot selfishly possess.
Love does not brag (the King James version uses the word “boast”). You can hear the boys in the locker room boast as one tells how he “scored” with a certain girl. He begins to brag about it. That person is incapable of either giving or receiving love. At best he is trying to build up a very withered ego by taking advantage of a girl. The same is true of women in their predatory manner with men. Those who engage in illicit sex are usually reaching out to cover up inadequacies and insecurities within themselves. When another person gives you his love, it should not be in your sight a surrender and a defeat to him and a victory for you. It should never be a sign of domination to you that you have prevailed over another person.
You should never take the humble service one believer will give to another as a mark of domination. You should never think of a person as inferior to you because they serve you and gives love unselfishly to you.
In your relationship to one another you should give love unselfishly to each other. Do not have the idea that when love is given to you, you have made a conquest. When someone has the true attitude toward love he does not brag. With true love, everyone is a winner and no one is a loser, whether it is an expression between a husband and wife, or the divine love that is expressed within the Body of Christ. The greatest is the one who serves (Matthew 23:11).
As we go on with the definition of love, we find that love is not arrogant. Arrogance is that volcano boiling over with self-importance. An arrogant person feels when love is received that it is all his due: “I am worthy to be loved. I deserve this love and adoration that everyone is giving to me. I am worthy of worship. They love me and I receive that love.” But the Word says that love is not arrogant. It means love is not to be related to self-idolatry. Self-idolatry, the narcissistic attitude, is only a love of self, and that is no love at all.
Next it says, love does not act unbecomingly. This means when real love from God exists in people’s hearts they do not embarrass or degrade the person they love, nor do they degrade themselves by some unbecoming act. Why don’t I go out sometime and cause so much trouble that I am thrown in jail? Why don’t I have a desire to do that just to defy the whole world? I will not do that because I love you. I would not act unbecomingly in such a way that it would hurt you or injure you (besides the fact that I don’t want to). I would not do anything that would bring a disgrace upon my children, or my grandchildren. It is not some self-righteous attitude; it is because I love them that I do not act unbecomingly. This has to be in our attitude.
A minister said, “I will do anything I want to do.” He did many outrageous things. I came to the conclusion that what was wrong with his ministry was that he did not have love. There was not the compassion in his heart, or he would not have acted so unbecomingly.
In love, you will always honor the place and the esteem the other person gives you, because love has to be with a measure of respect. You cannot accept another person’s love, which means their respect, without acting accordingly. You will not act unbecomingly.
Another important aspect of love is that it does not seek its own. Love does not have self-goals. It does not use another person’s love to secure a place or to secure things for themselves. A prostitute is a woman who may be attractive enough to stir the passions and desires of men. She does not love them, but she wants to use her ability and control over them for money. She has a selfish goal for whatever she gives. We condemn prostitution; there is no place within a Christian’s life, either to be a prostitute or to go to a prostitute. And yet I wonder how many believers find themselves using other people’s love in order to get their own way.
Sometimes in counseling couples, I find that the wife has withdrawn herself completely from her husband or his need. She is literally prostituting herself until he buys her a new car, gives her her own way about buying a new home, etc; only then will she be what he wants her to be to him. She is lower than the prostitute, because she has sought her own in the name of love. A prostitute, who is selling her body sexually for a certain price, will never tell a man she loves him; she is honest about it. But a wife or a husband who barters on their relationship (and the love of the other person) to accomplish certain ends is in reality lower than a prostitute. They have used love, and the prostitute uses only lust.
When you become a Christian who serves the Lord, His love should be in your heart, so that you are not seeking your own. You do not love because there will be a certain exchange and you will get it back. Love does not keep records. You cannot say you have done so much; therefore, you expect so much.
The next principle in the definition of love is that love is not provoked. Anger rises up in a person in the midst of circumstances. You often hear people say, “They can’t do that to me.” The anger rises up, and they are provoked. This definitely limits, or negates completely, the love they profess to have. Love does not rise up in anger over an injury, but love grieves over the offenses of another person. It weeps over them.
Some girls believe they must be promiscuous in order to be popular; yet they cannot relate to the promiscuous relationship, because they need love. There is a problem when they accept sexual relationships without love. They need the real relationship in which they are accepted as a person.
When a marriage is frustrated and betrayed, a man will often grieve over the offense rather than be provoked. There is usually mingled emotion, but when that settles down then comes the grieving of true love, trying to hold onto the love in their life.
Someone could hurt you in the church, and you could flare up for the moment and say, “How could they do that to me, after I have tried to help them so much and have loved them so much?” But after that dies down, one thing stays in your heart: a grieving for the brother. Love does not want to give up.
Love does not take into account a wrong suffered; it forgets. When someone comes to you and says he is sorry he offended you, you should say, “Who is keeping books? I am not taking into account the wrong suffered.” Some people vomit up out of the depth of memory offenses against them, and hold them over the heads of the people involved, who have long since repented. That is the weapon of those who are lacking in love. Little children fight one minute and play house the next. In malice be children (I Corinthians 14:20); forget it. “Well, I will forgive it, but I won’t forget it.” You cannot say that, because love makes no account of a wrong suffered. But that takes God’s love; that is real love.
I Corinthians 13:6 states that love does not rejoice in unrighteousnes.… Are you glad when your enemy stumbles and falls? David had been a fugitive, fleeing from Saul and living in caves, living as a vagabond and an outlaw because of the king’s anger. Yet when he found out Saul was dead, he lifted up his voice and wept for Saul (II Samuel 1).
When Samuel turned away from King Saul, and Saul grabbed the prophet’s coat and it rent, Samuel said, “God has rent the kingdom from you and has given it to another” (I Samuel 15:28). Yet a long time after that God said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, seeing I have rejected him? Take your horn of oil and go to Bethlehem, where I will show you a boy you shall anoint to be king” (I Samuel 16:1–3). Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. Whenever you are glad over another person’s exposure, or can open your mouth to gossip about another man’s fault or sin, you are showing no love at all.
The last part of verse 6 says that love rejoices with the truth. A need exists for the truth that is spoken in love (Ephesians 4:15). Galatians 6:2 says, Bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ. But it does not say to bear down on one another’s burdens. The undistorted truth is always expressed through love, with faith to help. That is the kind of love that rejoices in the truth.
The next point about love is that it bears (covers) all things. I Peter 4:8 says, …love covers a multitude of sins. If you find a person with a sin, pray with him, help him, and see the blood of Jesus Christ really cover that sin. When Proverbs 28:13 says, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, it is talking about something else. Exposure is not the goal of love.
It believes all things. It is not naive, but faith involved with love embraces the perfect outcome. Have you ever seen a mother whose son is a bum? He is everything wrong, but she loves him and believes he is going to turn out to be fine. He may come home and hardly give her a civil word, but she loves him and believes for him. Love has a faith that goes beyond appearances. You need faith. When God gives a revelation, a word of wisdom, or a word of knowledge, and you see some fault that God sees in a man, you do not abandon him. You have a faith to believe with him.
Love does not only believe all things, but it hopes all things. Love is very slow to despair. It has an enduring quality and does not give up. Abraham in hope against hope believed in the promises of God (Romans 4:18). Many times I have been ready to give up, but something kept me believing.
If you have the love of God in your heart, you are an incurable believer. You will be like Jeremiah. His word was a reproach and a derision to him, and he said, “I am not going to speak anymore in His name.” Then he said, But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. Jeremiah 20:9. Something within you does not die. Even when you think your life is full of ashes, God blows upon it and the embers come to life again. It hopes all things.
Love also endures all things. When you choose love’s course, you do not choose the easy way. You can apply it to marriage. Any man with an average intelligence can make enough money to keep himself comfortably. He does not really need a cook, frozen dinners being what they are, nor a laundress, because he just throws the clothes in a washing machine and turns the knobs. He does not need a housekeeper; in an hour he could probably take care of a nice apartment. He has no need of two cars because there is only one of him. He does not need charge accounts that will turn his hair gray at the first of every month, since he has enough money to pay cash if he wants to. He is a fool if he suddenly says, “It is to my advantage to get married.” And why does the woman need marriage? She will give up the best years of her life and vitality. She will ruin her figure and her nerves by having children who will probably forget her on Mother’s Day. She will take care of a big lazy man, do all of his cooking and everything for him, and never get anything. And he still will yell if he has to give her five dollars. Who needs that?
Many people think the single state is the best. For them there is no question about it, because they have no way to relate to a better life. But two people who are really in love will do anything to be together: “Two can live cheaper than one,” if you want to live inexpensively. Love will endure anything.
Love never fails.… I Corinthians 13:8. Maybe the circumstances seem to say there is no love, but it is a reality. Jesus …having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. John 13:1. It never fails, but that does not mean there will never be storms. It does not mean that because you love someone he will never be disappointed in you, nor that you suddenly become so perfect you will never make a mistake. The Scripture does not say love always has the best judgment in the world; it says love never really fails.
Even when love is blind, it feels its way back to the path. Do you love the Lord? You may wander in the way of the backslider, or the way of those devoid of understanding, but you will always keep feeling your way back to the Lord. You never let disappointments or bitterness come in to choke it out. The final determining factor is not what happens to you, but it is the fact that you love Him. People lose out with God because they do not love Him enough. There are some people you could not drive out of the church with a baseball bat. They will not take offense because they love the Lord so much. Other people run off, eager to take offense if you raise one eyebrow. There is only one reason: no love. Love never fails. Ultimately it comes through. By love serve one another.
Life must have meaning to us, and the effort, money, and time people spend on themselves do not seem to have any meaning when it is all over. Yet there is a great deal of satisfaction in serving one another with real love.
It is a privilege to serve in love. That is the highest thing there is. Do not think, “Here we are, giving everything and sacrificing,” and then ask as Peter did, What shall we have therefore? Matthew 19:27. You will receive a hundredfold (Matthew 19:29). But you have to have the eyes to count it, because it is the invisible coin of the realm of the Kingdom. You could not dream of the treasures that are laid up for you. They are there, a hundredfold. You cannot serve in love and say, “I am a loser.” You cannot do it.
Some will give everything they have to serve God, even their lives. I think we should count it a privilege. We should have a dedication to the love of God that says, “By the love of God I will serve, no matter what end it brings me to.”
God is able to prosper you so much that you would not be able to give it away fast enough. But He has also taken away all that men had, even their last breath, that they might attain to a better resurrection (Hebrews 11:35), to the great rewards in the age to come.