Wednesday, June 24, 2015

June 25, 2015

“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?