“Love is patient, love is kind. Love envies not; love flaunts
not itself and is not puffed up.” I
Corinthians 13:4
The Great Commandment demands you to, "'Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your
mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" I
Corinthians 13:4-8 describes in great detail what that love looks like.
How can you love God with all your heart,
soul, strength and mind if you are envious, boastful or arrogant?
How can you love your neighbor fully if you
are filled with envy, boasting and arrogance?
The answer in each case is, “You can’t!”
Since God gave the Great Commandment not the
great suggestion, you have a problem.
You must be patient and kind but you cannot
be envious, boastful or arrogant.
The word for “boastful” literally means “to
parade yourself”. That’s a humorous image isn’t it?
I doubt if you would organize a parade for
yourself but when you have a boastful spirit you are prone to put yourself on
parade.
One central truth of the Great Commandment
and I Corinthians 13 is that life is not about you! You need to make life about
God and about others.
If you read the preceding chapters of I
Corinthians you will see some illustrations of the envy, boasting, and
arrogance that led Paul to write this Chapter. The Corinthian church was
becoming filled with discord and strife due to their self-centeredness.
True love, perfect love, is not envious of
anything except more of God.
True love boasts only of God.
True love comes to those who understand that
when you have Him, you have all you need! What else would you desire? You would
have no need for envy.
True love is so mindful of God’s greatness
that it has nothing to boast of but Him!
To live in God’s love you must check your ego
at the door.
Have you done that?
Is all of your boasting in Him?