1 Corinthians 13:5

“...it is not easily angered...” -1 Corinthians 13:5

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Anger is not necessarily a bad thing.  Jesus got angry plenty of times at people while he was still on earth.  So why does it say here in the “love chapter” that loves i not easily anger.   The anger here is referring to a selfish anger—an anger that someone has wronged you or robbed you of your glory.  It’s inward focus.

Jesus’ anger was always out of concern for others.  He was angry at sin because of how sin hurts people.  He was angry when people sinned not to condemn them but because how those people were enslaved by sin.

Are you hothead?  When someone makes a joke at your expense do you get immediately offended?  Perhaps your anger is inward focused.  Pray and ask God to help you to focus not on yourself but on others.  When we begin to focus outside of ourselves, it becomes much easier to forgive and to bear with others.

If you find it difficult to forgive people, remember God forgave us.  If he was easily angered, we’d all be in trouble.  But because God is slow to anger, we are able to enjoy His forgiveness.  As such we should mirror God’s love as others wrong us or offend us.

How is your disposition?  Do you get angry easily or are you slow to anger?

1 Corinthians 13:5

“...it is not self-seeking...” -1 Corinthians 13:5

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For the past couple of days we’ve been talking about how love looks away from the self toward others.  This is what it means to say that love is not self-seeking.

As a Christian, this is one of the most difficult things for me to practice.  Because of my sinful nature, almost anything that I do is tainted with ulterior motives.  It’s so easy for pride or self-gain to seep into even the most altruistic and seemingly selfless act.  The Bible actually says that even our best deeds are like filthy rags before God.  It’s because our hearts are inherently selfish and always seeks to glorify itself.

Part of being a Christian is to tease out and recognize the selfish motives behind your actions.  This takes a lot of time with God because we’re good at deceiving ourselves.  We lie to ourselves about our motives and our agendas.  But when we spend time with God, His light brings to the surface all our ulterior motives and selfish intentions.  It’s super uncomfortable, but also incredibly freeing.  

Once our selfish motives are recognized, we can lift them up to God for forgiveness and cry out to Him for help.  And God listens to our prayers and begins to help us purify our motivations.  As long as we live on a fallen world, our actions will always be tainted with selfishness, but hopefully as we grow in faith, that taint becomes less and less.  Our motivations become more and more pure.

Are you talking with God about your motivations?   Can you pray this prayer to God:

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. -Psalm 139:23

1 Corinthians 13:5

“It does not dishonor others...” -1 Corinthians 13:5

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The Christian is so satisfied in God’s love for her that she does not need to find her sense of self-worth from others.  When we diss people, talk behind their backs, or damage the reputations of others, we’re doing so to build up our sense of self-worth.  They think, “At least I’m better than this person because...”  You can fill in the blank.

And that cycle of sin continues because when we dishonor someone, they get hurt and start to feel insecure and start to question their sense of self-worth so they start damaging other people’s reputation to feel better.  It’s a vicious cycle and as a youth leader, I’ve seen it so many times.  It’s heartbreaking.

You can break that cycle and the only way you can do it is to first receive God’s love and second, to channel God’s love toward others.  When you receive God’s love you feel completely satisfied despite your flaws and shortcomings.  Your blemishes don’t scare you or make you insecure anymore because you know you are fully loved by the God of the universe!  And we stop feeling insecure, that is when you can channel God’s love toward others.  Your desire is to build people up because you’re no longer comparing yourself to them to fulfill your sense of self-worth.  You know and believe you are already worthy in God’s sight.

Have you received God’s love?  Have you accepted God’s love?  Are you channeling His love toward others?

1 Corinthians 13:4

“...it does not boast, it is not proud.” -1 Corinthians 13:4

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There is no boasting in the Christian life.  We know that anything and everything we possess from our material positions to our abilities came from the hands of a loving God.  How can we boast about something that was really never ours but lent to us by God?

True love starts with the author of love—God Himself.  Out of His love He blesses us with gifts.  Only when we see our possessions and our talents as gifts from God are we able to love properly.   

First, we recognize that what we have doesn’t belong to just us.  As we learned in the last chapter of 1 Corinthians, God gives us things to be a blessing to the community.  Seeing our talents and possessions as God’s talents and possessions helps us to have a communal perspective on our gifts.

Second, it helps us in practicing humility.  If you’re athletic, it’s because God blessed you with that.  If you’re smart, it’s because God blessed you with that.  If you have a lot of material possessions or wealth, it’s because God blessed you with that.  When you begin to recognize that everything you have is from God, it eliminates pride.  You begin to realize that you’re not the source of your own glory, God is.  If God is the source of everything great about you, there’s no boasting about yourself since it’s all God.

Do you struggle with humility?  How do you see your abilities, talents and possessions?  Do you see them as gifts from God?

1 Corinthians 13:4

It does not envy... -1 Corinthians 13:4

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Love does not envy.  True love doesn’t think of itself.  Love’s concern is always for the other.  Envy is the focus on what one is lacking in comparison to others.  When envy someone else’s stuff, or position, or abilities, what we’re really doing is casting a spotlight on our own hearts and our own insecurities.

How do we combat envy?  By filling our hearts and minds with the love of Christ.  Jesus tells us that we are more loved as we are than we ever dare hope.  When we know and believe that we are fully accepted by God, the creator of the universe, our deficiencies and insecurities melt away.  We have nothing to prove because God already loves us.

Only when we know we are fully loved are we able to turn our eyes away from ourselves and onto others.

Do you know and believe that you are fully loved?  If this is something that you struggle with, bring it up with God.  Tell Him your insecurities.  Pray through your insecurities.  Give Him space to fill your heart and to heal you.

1 Corinthians 13:4

“...love is kind...” -1 Corinthians 13:4

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Kindness is in short supply these days.  It is especially in short supply in the public discourse.  There’s a lot of talk these days about justice and fighting for justice.  There’s a lot of talk these days about the importance of racial reconciliation and gender equality.  There’s a lot of talk these days about  climate change.  But those discussion oftentimes filled with negativity and meanness.

As Christians we are called to engage everyone with kindness, even those who don’t agree with us—especially those who don’t agree with us.

Jesus displayed the ultimate kindness on the Cross.  The pastor from the 1800s named Octavius Winslow wrote this:

“So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of Himself, He created the tree upon which He was to die, and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail Him to the accursed wood.”

If anyone should be angry and filled with negativity, it would be Jesus.  He made the very people who cried out “Crucify him!” and condemned him to death.  Yet, his prayer was of kindness.  He prayed to God, the Father, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We need Jesus’ kindness in our lives and in the way we live our lives.  People won’t be changed by being yelled out and called names.  They will only be transformed by the way we love them.

Are you kind on social media?  Are you kind in what you’re posting on your Insta stories?  Are you kind in the way you defend what you believe or support?

Love is kind.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. -1 Corinthians 13:1-3

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We can do all these things for God or for others, but if our actions are not backed by love, then it’s meaningless.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a Harvesters leader, on your church’s praise team, or even a pastor.  If how you serve others is not motivated by love then it is just empty noise.

For those of us who are serving or who have some type of leadership role at church, we need to examine our own hearts.  In prayer, we need to ask God to reveal our true motivations and ask Him to help us surrender our ulterior motives to God.

To be fair, we know that while on earth we will always have to wrestle with our motivations.  Nothing we do will ever be 100% pure.  But our desire should be to strive for a purity of heart and that can only happen through time with Jesus.  He reveals to us our selfish wants, forgives us, heals us, and frees us.

In what ways are you serving others these days?  Are your actions out of love or out of some self-serving motive?