Patient love

 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV

            As much as we love to quote this passage, and memorize this chapter, our love seldom if ever lives up to this. Mostly we want to love ourselves this way, and so we want to be loved this way. Jesus shows us the picture of this true and perfect love, as He bore all of our sin, and all the rejection, and humiliation that humanity had to lay upon Him, and for our sake He even bore the wraith of the thrice Holy Trinity. He did not become irritable, or resentful, but patiently to this day waits that all might come to a saving knowledge. He did not insist on His own way, even in His humanity, He surrendered to the Father’s way. He has shown us kindness beyond all reason.

            Having known such love, we have come into a truth which we must love whole heartedly. We have known kindness so let us be kind to others, giving them the benefit of the doubt, taking them at their word, and playing fairly: remember that God alone knows the heart and that He will judge. Let us not accept wrongdoing, but let us also be ready to forgive, and let us not presume we have the perfect understanding of right and wrong: we must be careful and diligent in establishing both from God’s word with much prayer and meditation. Let us go on hoping, for if there has been hope for us who might be beyond hope? Let us go on believing for we know whom we have believed in. And let us endure all things for God has loved us.

            “Little children love one another,” this is the law of Christ, and it is not easy. Beloved if we love one another, we should not come to each other with demands to overcome and have our way, but we should come with open scripture to reason together towards the truth. If we cannot agree let us compromise, and if we cannot compromise let us part ways as Abraham and Lot, or as Paul and Barnabas. O, dearly beloved of Christ, we can stand to lose a debate, or a preference, or some time, or a partnership, and many other things besides; but if we lose love, we have lost all for without love it is all worthless.

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