“The Incomparable Way of Love”
1 Corinthians 13
Love is the motivation for giving and love is not a gift. Love is an act of the will, an act of self surrender and the giving of ourselves to others. Edward J Carnell said that love is fellowship between two persons. So, love has always existed, even before within the trinity God chose to demonstrate His love in Christ ( Rom. 5.8) and told us love’s attribute. In this famous love we find only two objectives which describe love positively. Love is patient and kind "(v.4). In Greek, these two descriptive terms on verbs suggesting that love is active not static. This sort of love was the antidote which Paul prescribed for the disease of carnality infecting and dividing the church at Corinth.
Because love is long suffering or patient, it harbours no jealousy. It would not envy another’s spiritual gifts. It does not allow us to brag about ourselves nor let us exaggerate or become conceited about our own gifts or inflated with pride because of how the spirit has used us. Thus love never acts arrogantly, rudely or unbecomingly.
Love never tests the patience of others. It does not seek it’s own; that is, it does not insist on its own way or its rights, for such insistence is selfish a "desire of sinful nature." (Gal. 5:19) In the exercise of spiritual gifts, the loving person seeks to edify others, not to gratify himself or herself. Love never provoked easily (v 5) meaning it is not irritable, touchy or quick to take offence.
Love thinks no evil, that is it keeps no record of wrong, nor does it nourish resentment or try to get even. When love forgives, it forgets and begin afresh with a new encounter. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness or when injustice befalls someone else but rejoices when truth prevails. It finds no pressure in seeing another person "gets what’s coming to him" and never says, "It serves him right."
Because love is kind, it bears all things, it conceals the faults of other and throws a cloak of silence over what is offensive in another person. Love believes all things without doubting God. Love hopes all things… for in love there are no hopeless cases.. It endures all things, without weakening or retaliating or becoming critic. Such love never fails. It abides on and on forever.
Love is the best safeguard against pride in Christian service. Desiring the gifts in order to bless and help others will enable to conduct his or her Charismatic ministry in a humble way. Humility and love go hand and hand. In fact, they are like a coin. Love is the obverse side, humility is the reverse. Display love rather than power should be the goal of our ministry in the gifts of the spirit. Since God is love, this will be the most characteristic sign of His presence and His working.
