Major points I want to make this week:
- Pursuing God’s love is greater than pursuing spiritual gifts.
- When you truly love someone you are able to look beyond faults, flaws, and failures and love still them.
What God’s Love Is: #1) Love Endures Long from Rick Pina on Vimeo.
(1 Cor 13:4-8 Amplified Bible) “Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God’s love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].”
- There are 20 characteristics of God’s love in these 5 verses and we will look at each one.
Characteristic #1: Love endures long
- Simply put, love does not give up easily.
- When you truly love someone you are able to look beyond faults, flaws, and failures and love still them.
- The story of the prodigal son is a good example (see Luke 15:11-31).
- This kid disrespected his father by asking for his inheritance early.
- He then set off for a distant country and wasted the money on fast living.
- After the kid was broke (financially) and broken (in spirit), he decided to come back home and ask his father for a job.
- He knew he had messed up and no longer considered himself a son.
- He was willing to take the position of a hired servant.
- His father, on the other hand, was operating in love. He woke up every day expecting that his son would come home. One day, while the kid was still a good ways off, the father saw him coming and was filled with compassion for him.
- The father was not filled with rage, resentment, or bitterness. This father was filled with a love for his son that “endured long.”
- He did not wait for his son to make it to him, he ran out to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.
- The son tried to explain that he was willing to be a hired servant, but the father ignored the foolish comments.
- Instead of saying, “I told you so,” the father told his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.”
****God enables you to endure disappointments from and mistakes by the ones that you love.
- When you operate in the love of God you are not quick to hold grudges, nor focus on the bad. You are quick to forgive and to move forward and you don’t live in the past.
- Are you operating in the love of God?
- Does your love endure long, or is it a love that only loves when others do what you like?
