But Have Not Love

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 ESV

We can have tons of biblical knowledge and speak well on the things of God, but if we are lacking in love for the family of God, then all that profits nothing. But what is love? It is not the kind of love that many are teaching today which tolerates all forms of evil going on within the gatherings of the church and which withdraws from speaking the truth of the Scriptures in love to people out of a desire to not offend them. It is not the kind of love that just says what people want to hear, either, for that is not love.

So, what is this love this is speaking of? The Greek word for it is agapé, and it means to prefer what God prefers, which is all that is holy, righteous, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful, and obedient to God and to his New Covenant commandments. It is a love which centers in moral preference, and for us who believe in Christ, it is to prefer to live through Christ, to choose his choices, and to obey them in his power. It is to live holy lives pleasing to him and to be those who are not living in sin.

So, when we love others with this kind of love, we are going to treat them as God/Christ treats us. We will not sin against them deliberately and habitually and premeditatedly, but we will do good to them, as God defines good. And so we are not going to tell them lies to make them feel good or hold back the truth of the Scriptures in order to not offend them, and we are not going to coddle them in their sins so that they won’t hate us and so that they will like us. But we will do what God’s word teaches we must do in love.

But that isn’t all. We will do kind things for them and show them expressions of love and of caring about them in various ways, like sending an encouraging note, and praying for them, or sharing a song with them or something that is special to us that we feel may encourage them. And being sensitive to their needs and to their hurts and to their concerns and to pray for them when they are in need and inviting them over for a meal or just to visit and talk. But love never compromises the holiness of God.

So, when we are loving others with this love which prefers what God prefers, then we are going to treat others in like manner as God treats us. And he is patient with us, but his patience does not mean tolerance of deliberate and habitual sin. His patience does not mean that he says nothing or that he doesn’t discipline us, or that he doesn’t teach the church to exercise biblical discipline of its members who are refusing to repent of deliberate and habitual sin. Patience just means slow to anger, not quick-tempered. But it also means that we don’t give up on people, and we keep praying for them.

And kindness never involves lying to people, not even telling what some people refer to as “white lies.” But it doesn’t mean that we just blast out everything we think and feel in meanness and thoughtlessness and cruelty towards others. For speaking the truth must also be coupled with love. But sometimes, depending on the circumstances, we may have to use stronger terms, like Jesus did with the Pharisees, because of the stubbornness and rebellion of those who are deliberately and habitually sinning against God and other humans while professing Christ as Savior. And that is kindness.

When we love others with the love of Christ, we are not to be envious of others who have what we do not have. Some people out of jealousy and envy turn to being spiteful, resentful, bitter, unforgiving, and even might murder another person out of jealously, like Cain killed his brother Abel. And we are not to be boastful and prideful, thinking we are better than everyone else. For we all are born into this world with sin natures, in the image of Adam, and it is only to the glory of God that any of us live righteously.

And we are not to insist on our own way, unless it is truly God’s way, and it is the way of truth and righteousness and moral purity and honesty and uprightness, etc. We need to be those who stand on truth and who refute the lies of the enemy, even if we are accused of wanting to have it our way. But we need to be willing to compromise, where necessary, on non-essentials, i.e. things that don’t really matter for eternity. We should be those who submit to one another in areas that are not against God.

And, although I may have already covered this somewhat in the paragraphs above, we are never to be those who rejoice in wrongdoing. And this includes we should not be those who give our loyalty, devotion, and commitment and support to those who are doing evil to others, either, whether in real life, or in the viewing of movies and videos which glorify doing evil to others and immorality and adultery and lying and stealing, etc. For we are not to rejoice in evil, but in good, as God defines good.

And we are to rejoice in the truth, not shun it, not ignore it because it makes us uncomfortable. The truth shouldn’t be spoken of as evil while evil is being spoken of as good, but that is where things are now in the world and in the worldly church, too. They don’t like the gospel Jesus taught and that the NT apostles taught, and so they alter and dilute it and teach some truth along with lies which are mainly the twisting of truth but with non-truths added into the mix. For they prefer the lies to the truth, because the lies allow them to keep living in deliberate sin and still claim heaven as their home.

Now when this says that love bears all things and believes all things and hopes all things and endures all things, this is not teaching tolerance of sinful practices and believing everything people say to us. For we are not to tolerate sinful practices, but we are to confront them, and call for repentance. And we are to test everything people say to us against the Scriptures to make certain that they are telling the truth. And we need to believe the truth and not the lies. And we are not to put our hope in things or people not of God, but we are to believe God and put our hope in HIM.

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer 

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897

Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,

This is my constant longing and prayer;

Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,

Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,

Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,

Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,

Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,

Holy and harmless, patient and brave;

Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,

Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,

Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;

Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,

Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,

Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;

Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;

Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYhiK2nQBg 

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