Loving One Another Series

The first place we might look to see if we have a puffed-up sense of our own importance is in our prayers. Do we pray only for ourselves and our own interests, or do we also pray for others. In our everyday lives, do we consider others as more important than ourselves, or are our interests always first?

If we are wrong we need to admit it. It’s true in all of our relationships.

We’re finally moving to verse 5. Where Paul tells us love is not rude. On the surface the definition is not about rudeness. The Greek definition is someone who “acts improperly, they act unseemly, behave unbecomingly (or even dishonorably); indecent.

It means someone’s behavior is “unabidable.” They don’t have the conduct which creates the desire for others to remain.

We can easily be rude to one another. We’ve all been there, we’ve all done it, we’ve all experienced it. Sometimes it’s really difficult to know the boundaries or what’s rude and what’s not rude. I don’t know one pastor who has not been on the receiving end of “righteous anger” masked as rudeness and arrogance. It’s part of the landscape of ministry. It’s really a look at how we treat one another. Are our actions unbecoming and indecent?

Honestly . . . sometimes it’s hard to know. Sometimes when we are feeling attacked we respond. We may think we’ve acted reasonably, but reasonably is very subjective. How one person views our actions is different from another person’s.

The bottom line is to have a goal to treat others with those first two words Paul used . . . Patience and Kindness. Of course, this doesn’t mean you need to be in a relationship with someone if they are hurtful to you. We need to set up healthy boundaries so that we don’t get hurt. We need to move away from those who hurt us, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Love controlled behavior does nothing which brings shame on you.

Paul then tells us “Love does not insist on its own way.”

There is a tombstone in the courtyard at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London which reads, “Sacred is the memory of General Charles George Gordon, who at all times and everywhere gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, his heart to God.”

I don’t think he insisted on having things his own way. Paul is talking about someone who wants to further their advantage over you. They insist on having their way. Not because it is best for everyone, but because it is best for them. When this is done it is manipulative. So the person can have what they want. It’s the person who seems nice to you until you don’t give them what you want, and you realize the friendship was not real.

The love is not selfish. The love is not manipulative, it is not used to get ones own way. In agape love there is no “I’ll love you if...”

Paul then tells us love is not irritable or provoked. This means love is not “exasperated, irritated, aroused to resentment; to incite someone and stimulate their emotions; to rouse someone to anger and provoke feelings.”