We have been looking at love in recent weeks. We have seen how love is neither trivial or necessary(in the deterministic sense), and is in fact absolutely foundational to knowing God. We have been using a working definition of love which is based on the love that God has shown to us through the cross of Jesus. We have said that love is, “benefiting others at my expense”. This is sometimes called “agape” love after the Greek word ἀγάπην used in these passages. It is a special selfless kind of love that is best demonstrated and understood by the love of God for us. But this special kind of love has other attributes beyond being selfless and “other” focused. The following passage in 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a more detailed look at “agape” love and includes some of its other characteristics.

Love is patient and kind;

Love is patient and kind

When love is not based on what I feel or what I am getting out of the interaction, love can be both patient and kind. Patient because the outcome does not ultimately depend on me and kind because I have been the recipient of this same undeserved love from God. It was the kindness and patience of God that brought me, however slowly, to repentance. This love which is from God will work through us to overcome anger and remain patient and kind, even when others fail us.

Love does not envy or boast

The love of God comes from God. And since the source of this love is inexhaustible so is this love. We are eternally secure in this love because it can never fail, because God never fails. Therefore, this love does not fall to the usual sins of insecurity, such as envy or boasting. The love of God in us gives us a sense of peace and satisfaction that allows others to succeed without wishing it was us. We don’t need what someone else has, nor do we need to prove anything to anyone. This love is a gift and we have it, there is no need to brag or pretend. We can be certain of God’s love for us and in us. Therefore we can give it away generously and with confidence knowing we will never run out.

Love is not arrogant or rude

To know the love of God is to understand our unworthiness of it. To know God’s love is to understand that it is a gift of God’s mercy and grace alone. The more this love invades our hearts the more we understand our own evil and selfish motivations. The contrast is shocking to us and helps us to see others in a very different light. When the love of God shines a light on the darkness of our souls we can see the faults of others without imagining that somehow we are superior to them. And as we shed the superior attitude - the rudeness goes with it.

Love does not insist on its own way

This attribute of love takes us back to our earlier definition, “Benefiting others at my expense”. The love of God, this “agape” love is wholly focused on the others benefit. It is the love that carried Jesus through abuse, disdain, torture, and ultimately death at the hands of the very people he came to help. His singlehearted focus on our eternal good carried him through all of this because of his “agape” love for us. In the garden of Eden we essentially said to God, “not your will but mine be done”, and at the cross Jesus reversed that by saying, “Father, not my will but yours be done”.

In this day of “self-care”, “establishing personal boundaries”, finding that elusive “proper work/life balance”, and often just downright hedonism and narcissism it is hard to even hear, must less take seriously, the call of love to lay our lives down for others. To the modern mind our personal health and well being is paramount. We often hear absurdities like, “if I don’t love myself, how can I love others?” This love of self is not “agape” it is a profoundly selfish desire. If there is one thing our culture does not lack it is the love of self. And if self-love truly made you more loving toward others we should be living in paradise already, but I think we have all seen what this fixation on self has produced. True love shows us a very different way.

Love is not irritable or resentful

Love is exactly what is missing in our, “that triggers and offends me culture”. There is no love in forming tribes and blaming all of our problems on the other tribe. Resentment is taught from early on through constant harping on the injustices of the past, or inequities of the present, and the notion that we do not deserve to suffer in any way. And when we do suffer it is caused by the injustice and privilege of others we are never personally to blame for our unhappiness. To call the current culture irritable and resentful is like calling the ocean wet. As our culture has increasingly rejected the love of God in Jesus it has unsurprisingly become much less loving. Thus more irritable and resentful.

Love does not rejoice in wrong but in the truth

Our appetites tell us a lot about our hearts, I say this with a deep sense of my own failure in this regard. What do we hunger for? What fills us with glee? The truth, or is it the thrill of “getting away with something”. Do we celebrate good people who try to follow the truth? Or do will follow those that cynically play to our lower natures? There are many more questions of this sort and they all come down to the same question. Do we love? Do we love others? Do we seek the truth? Or do we rejoice in evil? Each of us has to answer these questions for ourselves.

Love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things

As I look at this final list of attributes I realize that a whole article could be written on each one. But for today, I think I will look at them together because when taken together they paint a very profound picture of the kind of person that love creates. Previously we mentioned John Lennon’s song “Imagine” but instead of imagining a world without religion imagine a world filled with faith, and hope, and patience and endurance and fortitude. I’d much rather imagine a world like that than the soulless, godless, hopeless world of Lennon’s imagination. Without God there is no love, without love there is no faith, without faith there is no hope, without hope there is no future worth imagining.

Love never ends…

In this passage Paul talks about the transitory nature of nearly everything but this one thing remains, and that is love. The Darwinist and the materialistic naturalistic scientist will never explain the origin of love. So in a very real sense love has no beginning or end its source is God and God has no beginning or end. Whatever else goes right or wrong, over time this one thing we can always count on.

Love never ends.

Have a great week!