1 Corinthians 13:7

“...always hopes...” -1 Corinthians 13:7

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What does it mean that love always hopes?  It means that love doesn’t write people off as unredeemable.  We all have people in our lives that we think, “Wow, this person is pretty bad, will he or she ever change?”  God’s power to change hearts and transform people is bigger than our sinful natures.

That’s why love hopes.  Love can only hope because it rests upon the power of God.  It hopes to change the worse sinner to a lover of God and a lover of people.  The Apostle Paul once persecuted Christians and even watched them get murdered.  God took Paul and transformed him to become the greatest missionary who has ever lived.  Paul wrote more books in the New Testament than anyone else.  Love always hopes.

Think about someone in your life you can’t stand.  Now pray for yourself and then pray for this person.  Ask God to help you love this person.  Ask God to use his power to change this person’s life.

Love always hopes.

1 Corinthians 13:7

“It always protects...” -1 Corinthians 13:7

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What does it mean that love protects?  Love is thinking of others’ needs before your own needs.  To protect someone is to shield them even at great cost to yourself.  Love thinks of others first.

Jesus is the ultimate example of how love protects.  We’re all headed to a place of compete separation from God, and Jesus protected us by coming down and making the ultimate sacrifice.  He took on the punishment so we wouldn’t have to.  That’s a love that protects.

The way Jesus’ love protects us, may it inspire us to do the same for others.

Do you think of others needs before your own?  Are you so wrapped up in worrying about your own issues that you never think about the needs of others?  Does your love protect others?

1 Corinthians 13:5

“...it keeps no record of wrongs...” -1 Corinthians 13:5

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This is oft misinterpreted verse.  To keep no records of wrong doesn’t mean you forget about it.  God keeps no record of our wrongs doesn’t mean that He’s thinking, “What did Gerald do again?  I forgot.”  To keep no record of wrongs means that you treat that person AS IF the person didn’t commit the crime or the offense.  It’s another way of saying, “Love forgives.”

When we DO keep a record of wrongs, we still allowed what the person did to us to bother us and to shade the way we treat the offender.  That’s not true forgiveness.  When God forgave us of our sins, He doesn’t say, “I forgive you but I’m still going to condemn you a little bit.”  There’s no condemnation.  When God forgives, it’s a true and complete forgiveness.

That’s what we ought to do when we are wronged.  We need to ask God to help us be like Him—to forgive fully and completely, not keeping a mental record of wrongs that we keep going over and over again in our minds.

Are you keeping a record of wrongs from those who have offended you or hurt you?  Or, are you asking God to help you forgive people in the same way He has forgiven us?

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?