Last week we look at what love is and the importance of love, it was establish that we cannot love unless we know God.
This week we will be looking at the characteristics of love:
Love is patient
Love gives time to grow.
The word literally means suffering long without getting annoyed or anxious. "Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." - Romans 12:17-19
When you are patient, you’re slow to anger, you endure personal wrongs without retaliation. You bear with others’ imperfections, faults, and differences. You give them time to change, room to make mistakes without coming down hard on them. Patience waits for a godly outcome. Patience is how love reacts in order to bring peace of Christ to a negative situation.
Love is kind
Love helps people to grow
Kindness is about treating others the way that you would like to be treated. It is about looking to the interests of others above your own. Kindness says am not just going to give you time to grow am going help you grow.
Love does not envy
Love makes no room for jealousy
The word means to eagerly desire, a jealous person wants what others have, he wants things for himself. He is too selfish to applaud others’ success; he desires to have all the attention.
Jealousy can be dangerous and destructive "For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." -James 3:16
Jealousy wants "what's mine" the cup of jealousy has no bottom. It can never be satisfied. Love celebrates instead of envying.
Love does not boast
Love makes no room for arrogance
Love is not boastful, sometimes, we confuse spiritual growth with spiritual pride. There are those Christians who think they are the standard. To be arrogant is to be puffed up and self-focused. It speaks of someone who has a “big head.” Love doesn’t get its head swelled, it focuses on the needs of others.
We are all expendable. We should not boast or be arrogant. Everything we have is a gift. Let’s not have an inflated view of our gifts or usefulness to the Body of Christ.
Love has no desire to be seen/noticed or applauded.
Love is not proud
Love is humble
Figuratively, the word proud describes bearing one's self up loftily or haughtily with pride. Pride and selfishness is the root of all sins "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." - Proverbs 16:18.
Pride produces contention but "whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." -Matthew 23:12.
Love listens; pride talks. Love forgives; pride resents. Love gives; pride takes. Love apologizes; pride blames. Love understands; pride assumes. Love accepts; pride rejects. Love trusts; pride doubts. Love asks; pride tells. Love leads; pride drives. Love frees up; pride binds up. Love builds up; pride tears down. Love encourages; pride discourages. Love confronts; pride is passive-aggressive. Love is peaceful; pride is fearful. Love clarifies with truth; pride confuses with lies. Love and pride are mutually exclusive. Love dies with pride but comes alive with humility.
Love does not dishonor others
Love is not rude
The word “rude” means to act unbecomingly, and unfittingly— to act with disdain for someone else, even to the point of disgracing or embarrassing someone. Love makes a point to not offend people unnecessarily " Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." -Ephesians 4:29
Love is not self-seeking
Love is not selfish
Love does not insist on having their own way, Selfishness (putting my needs above others) destroys relationships because we become incapable of seeing others’ needs and desire. My consuming desire to fulfil my every need will always lead to my own self-destruction "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:" -Philippians 2:3-5
Love is not easily angered
Love is not quick tempered
When you are quick tempered, it is often evidence of how you view other people. Anger itself is not sinful but can quickly lead to sinful expressions. For this reason, Paul wrote to the Ephesians, "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:” (Ephesians 4:26). There are times when we become angry, yet we are called to express our anger in non-sinful, constructive ways.
Love keeps no record of wrongs
Love is not resentful
We have no “private file of personal grievances that can be consulted and nursed whenever there is possibility of some new slight.
Love is not resentful. Love doesn’t “save up” wrongs to use strategically at a later time. Resentment is careful to keep books, which it reads and rereads, hoping for a chance to get even. Love keeps no books, because it has no place for resentment or grudges.
Love does not delight in evil
Love does not parade another person failures.
Love is instead pure and is not double-faced. There is a wholesomeness and genuineness to love. Love cannot rejoice in iniquity because it’s sincere, We do not “rejoice in wrongdoing” with a prideful self-righteousness. Instead, we want to help them and restore them. "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." -Galatians 6:1-3.
Love rejoices with the truth
Love rejoices in spiritual growth/victories
Love’s emphasis is not tracking down people and telling them everything that is wrong, but rather, to encourage people to come to Christ and walk in the truth. Love encourages by expressing joy over little evidences of growth. John, the apostle wrote "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth." -3 John 4
Love always protects
Love covers
Love bears all things! The idea is that love “covers” or “protects”. Love bears all things by protecting others from exposure, ridicule, or harm. Genuine love does not gossip or listen to gossip. Even when a sin is certain, love tries to correct it with the least possible hurt and harm to the guilty person. Love never protects sin but is anxious to protect the sinner.
Love always trust
Love gives people the benefit of the doubt
No trust, no love. Trust is the foundation of a loving relationship.
Love is not distrustful or suspicious but believes the best about others.
Love does not enter into suspicion unless there are facts to support it.
When trust is broken love's first reaction should be to heal and restore.
Love always hopes
Love is optimistic
Love sees the best in people, Love hopes for the best. It never thinks the worst, but always hopes and expects the best about a person when there is any question. This biblical optimism grows out of faith in God, not men. Hope is the joyous anticipation of good to come.
Love always perseveres
Love never gives up
Love don’t run away when it get’s hard. They are there for the long haul! Love “endures all things” All things” – every sort of offense, pressure, affliction, difficulty, victory, defeat etc. Love endures! It eliminates attitudes such as:
I can’t take it anymore.
Things have got to ease up.
If things don’t change, I’ll crack.
Let me remind you that the agape love is supernatural. You cannot produce it on your own. This is God-sized love.
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