Redefining Love - 1 Corinthians 13:4

Summer is finally here and many of us are ready to get out and see what blossoms in our relationships, but we may not have the best track record when it comes to love. For some of us, we keep getting our relationships wrong because our definition of love is wrong, too. 1 Corinthians 13:8 says, “Love never ends.” or, in the NKJV, “Love never fails.” Wouldn’t it be great to experience a love like that? Well, this month we’re going to be looking at this kind of unfailing love and compare it with our more modern conceptions. If your definition of love needs an upgrade, this series is for you!

1 Cor. 13:4 tells us, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant.” Already, in the famous “love chapter” of 1 Corinthians, the bar seems to be set pretty high. Starting out with the phrase, “Love is patient,” gives us an idea of the kind of list we’re getting into and already might conflict with the way some of us primarily think about love. When you think about love, are your first thoughts about something you receive or something you give? Many times, our focus is on making sure we are getting the love we are looking for rather than making sure that love is flowing out from us. Whitney Houston sang that the greatest love of all is learning to love yourself. If you search online, you will find countless affirmations telling you to love yourself first, that you can’t love anyone else unless you love yourself, that you simply have to seek your own love and if other people aren’t giving you the love you think you deserve, then cut them out because you don’t need that negativity in your life. This way of self-centered thinking has become so mainstream that it’s not even questioned anymore and simply taken at face value. However, the bible tells us that “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends,” in John 15:13. If your perception of love is mainly focused on yourself, then you are settling for a lower form of love that will never truly satisfy. In order to experience love in its greatest sense, you have to realign your perspective and recognize that it’s not about what you get but what you give.

The next important key to love that you’ll notice is that none of these descriptions of love are talking about a feeling. Emotions are great. They allow us to interpret the world around us in a spectrum of color and light rather than cold black and white. Not all emotions feel good, but it’s the hard ones that give us a greater appreciation for the good. Giving and receiving love produces a really great emotional reaction in our brains, but love is the cause not the effect; it’s the act, not the feeling produced by the act. You can start loving and you can stop loving, but you can’t fall in and out of it. I’ve never once fallen into complimenting my wife, washing the dishes or changing a diaper. Those were all choices, and love is an action that requires a choice. Remember what we read in John, the greatest love is laying down one’s life for a friend. That’s an action made from a conscious choice. If love was just a feeling, then it would be easy to fall in and out of. When we believe in a wrong definition of love, we can easily fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, I just don’t ‘feel’ the way I used to feel about them, so I guess I don’t love them anymore.” From there, we can justify every step leading towards the end of our relationship. “Isn’t it better for them to be with someone who truly loves them? Don’t I deserve to be with someone who makes me happy? Shouldn’t it be more exciting? I haven’t felt the rush of love in so long, maybe we’re just not meant to be.” How many fathers have sat their kids down and said, “I’ll always love your mother, but I’ve just got to do what’s best for me.” This is a sick perversion of love that ends up hurting so many more people than just the two in the relationship. When our definitions of love are based on how we feel and not the choice we intentionally make to love another person, our love is always going to be lacking and leading to relational breakdown. So, we can see what love isn’t but then what is it?

Love is patient. Can your love wait? Can you allow love to grow and bloom in its own time or do you need to have it right now? One of the repeated exhortations in the Song of Solomon is to not awaken love before its time. Contextually, it is primarily referring to a sexual type of love and saying not to arouse that kind until marriage, but we can even rush into dating and even into friendships. Have you ever pushed someone away because you came on too strong? Sometimes we ruin what could have been a meaningful relationship because we simply cannot wait and overwhelm the other person before the relationship has the legs to support all that we want to put out there. Patience is also needed when the other person just isn’t moving as quickly as you would like, not responding immediately to messages, or when you are supposed to wait to do something with them but it’s taking forever. Patience shows them that you value them more than whatever it is that you want to do with them.

Love is kind. Kindness is more than just niceness. It’s gentle. It’s considerate. Kindness avoids a harsh response when you might be frustrated. Kindness is giving the benefit of the doubt and not holding onto an issue and saving it for later. Kindness is caring for the other person and giving them a sense of safety when they’re around you. If you’re friends or romantic partners are frequently starting sentences with phrases like, “Please don’t be mad, but...” then kindness may be a big area that you are lacking. Love also does not envy or boast. Some of us have a real hard time when other people succeed while we feel like we are stuck in place. If I want what they have, if I am jealous of their successes, I can’t be happy for them. Love wants the people around them to do as well as they can and celebrates their successes with genuine joy. Then again, when it is our turn for success, love doesn’t rub that in other people’s faces, either. Love chooses to be content; able to celebrate the victories of others and humbly accept our own wins, too.

Love is not arrogant. It’s impossible to love someone when you think you’re better than them. Even the good you may do towards them does not come from love but from pity, which is dehumanizing and deprives them of their dignity. Love doesn’t think that we are better, think that we are always right or look down on the other person. Love puts us on the same level, I’m no better or worse and neither are you. When we can stand side by side with others, our encouragement isn’t condescending or belittling, but inspiring and empowering. You’ll never be able to truly love another person if you actually think that you are better than everyone.

Well, we are just scratching the surface as we begin to redefine love. Some of these points we talked about today may be pretty challenging, but remember that you’re not in it alone. God made us to love Him and love our neighbors, and He is the one that can love through us even when we’re not “feeling it.”