Love Is…….

I’ve started to read a book which is based on meditations on 1 Corinthians 13 by Les & Leslie Parrott.

Thought I’d put a few things down about what it says.

Love is Patient – There’s a story about a wise man in China, who got along with everyone, never argued with friends or family. He lived in harmony.

The Chinese emperor heard of this man and asked him to write in 10,000 words the way he managed to live like he does. Some time later the man provided a scroll which contained the answer. He had written 10,000 times – PATIENCE!

How much patience do we have with the people we come into contact with? Do we get frustrated with our friends and family? Patience is measured by our ability to endure something we’d rather not.

Love is Patient – just as our patience is exhausted, love empowers us to find a little more.

Love is Kind – “Love is kind, gentle, benign, pervading, and penetrating the whole nature, mellowing all which would have been harsh or austere” (Wuest’s Expanded Translation)

A definition – Kindness is love’s readiness to enhance the life of another person.

I found this an en-lighting: kindness comes from small behaviours. We don’t think of big donations or grand contributions as kind. We call them “generous”, “charitable”, or “benevolent”. It’s the small things we call kind.

What small things can we do for each other that would be kind? Does kindness come from a million small behaviours that enhance the lives of the people we meet?

Love does not envy – How often are we tempted by various things but do not give into them, yet suddenly get caught up with envy.

I know I’ve been caught at the most unusual times, generally during worship – listening to other musicians and think “I wish I could be up there playing rather than being here”. Suddenly, before you know it, your mind is no longer on God but on other things.

What is envy – more than jealousy which focuses on possessing what you desire, envy focuses in taking something you desire away from another person who owns it.

Aristotle called envy “the sin against the brother” – His meaning that envy is most keenly felt between two people who are closely related. The most common places for envy to show its head is where we come across people who are like us.

Am I envious of a guitarist? No as I have no ability to play a guitar (apart from the chord of G!), however, another saxophonist that’s a different matter.

We have to remind ourselves that to Love is not to be envious!

Love does not boast – I think that the only thing I can say about this is put a copy of a paraphrased version of 1 Corinthians 13 below. It speaks for itself!

Paraphrase by Angela McCord

If I go to language school and learn to speak a hundred different languages, preach to thousands all over the world, and lead all to Christ, but have hate in my heart in a silent war with my neighbor who's built his privacy fence on my side of the boundary line, my words are nothing except the screaming of a heavy metal rock band.

If I have a doctorate in theology, science, language, arts and literature and can raise mountains out of the dust of the plains, but am only concerned with the size of my paycheck, wardrobe, and house, it is as if I don't exist ... have never existed.

If I give up a good salary opportunity to work in compassionate ministries, tithe ten percent, give the rest to the poor and eventually die for them, but only do it to get my name in the paper, and I lose sight of the lost hungry souls, I certainly don't gain anything but lose my own soul.

Love walks the floor all night with a crying baby, smiles as she greets new visitors in Sunday school. She doesn't want what she doesn't have. She doesn't say, "Look how wonderful I am," but "Look how great you are." She doesn't snub anyone, isn't always looking in a mirror, and doesn't make a mental list for retribution when things don't go her way. She doesn't close herself in but opens her heart and makes herself vulnerable to others.

Love remains while the world crumbles around her.

While we live here on earth we can only see love in other people, a very imperfect reflection of the love of Christ, full of faults and human failures. But in heaven, we'll see Love in the form of Jesus. And now I can know in part -- full of my own humanity, but then I can love perfectly, even as I am completely loved.

The only things that are really important are faith in God, hope for the future, and love from God for every man. But you cannot have faith or hope until you first understand and demonstrate love.

I can work with the poor like Mother Teresa, write literature like C.S. Lewis, sing like Sandi Patti, move people like Gloria Gaither, preach like Billy Graham, have spiritual insight like James Dobson, be a great leader like Martin Luther King Jr., and martyr like Ghandi, but until I love like Jesus my soul is lost.