Paul now begins to describe God’s love from the point of caring in the body of Christ: “Love suffers long, and is kind; love envies not; love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up” (1 Corinthians 13:4). Let’s unwrap each of these five illustrations of Godly love toward our neighbor:

1. “Love suffers long“. Suffering long means it is patient. Love doesn’t use you yourself as the standard for others, because its not all about you. Patience means we don’t push others beyond their capacity. God was patient with you in your early stages…be patient with others. Growth takes time.

2. “Love…is kind“. When you put patience to work, it isn’t rude when people do stupid things. We have a responsibility to represent Christ in a fallen world. So we shouldn’t be acting like the fallen world acts. There is no greater kindness than when Jesus went to the cross to pay for your sins. Let’s model kindness like that to others.

3. “Love envies not“. Envy is to be jealous of another. Since we’re all a part of the same body of Christ, when one succeeds or gets ahead, it makes the whole body look better and increases all of us. Envy is simply the desire to exalt ourselves in the eyes of others. Rather, we Christians are to be one another’s servant so the whole increases.

4. “Love vaunts not itself” To vaunt oneself is an attitude of pride. We boast of our accomplishments to make ourselves look bigger and more successful than we really are. It is spiritual arrogance. A proud man will never reach out to help someone else because he feels like he might lose something. But only when we give something away do we we truly get refilled by God’s Spirit. What are you giving away today?

5. “Love…is not puffed up“. To puff oneself up is another way to say, ‘vaunts oneself’. On my first mission trip to the Dominican Republic, there were two young men who walked through the neighborhoods like Pharisees in a Christian cartoon. They wore suits like Mormon missionaries and literally had their noses up in the air around others. They had puffed themselves up until no one wanted to be like them. They repelled others. Love doesn’t puff itself up, it becomes a servant.

These are practical examples of love and how it acts or doesn’t act. In the next several verses Paul continues this simple lesson on what God’s love looks like.

Tags: love