The Fruit of the Spirit 11 (Love is Patient and Kind)
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;”
I Corinthians 13:4 NKJV
At the close of the previous article, I started to Share about the behavior of Love from 1 Corinthians 13.
How does love behave?
It's essential to know and understand how Love behaves in the Bible. Else, what we would be carrying in our mind is the societal definition of what Love is. But our society is not licensed to define Love because they don't know about it.
God is Love. Love only comes from Him. For us, It is only a relationship with Him that will guarantee us access to understand and express His Divine Love.
The first behavior of Love (From 1 Corinthians 13) I started to share in the last article is “Love is patient and Kind.”
Patience is a premium in our society today. Society has been shaped in such a way that you can have whatever you want quickly. Different things have been tagged with the word “fast”—Fast-food, Fast-track, and the like. These fast processes have rubbed on many minds, which has affected how they relate to people.
However, we need to know that God's love operates with patience.
How is patience manifested in Love?
1 Corinthians 13:4 tells us that Love stimulates both patience and kindness. That means that the Patience that manifests as a result of love does not react negatively or keep quiet when someone has done her wrong. Instead, she shows kindness to someone who has done wrong to her.
That is what love looks like on a man, such that instead of demanding your right, you are patient with the offender and would even go further to being kind.
So, when a man is propelled by Agape Love, He will be patient with the offender and be kind to Him. That is Love—Agape! Therefore, you cannot separate Patience and kindness when it is propelled by love. It looks like a passive and active dimension of Love; one side endures, and the other side—is beneficence. It is the same coin, so you cannot pick.
With all these and more that Love does, it is easy to say no man has the inherent capacity to replicate such. However, this is the life God expects us to live. So, how can we live up to those expectations? I believe if we can carefully consider how God relates with us, we will have an answer.
“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4
When we look at our lives in the mirror of God's love, we will see the riches of God's goodness (kindness) and the patience He bestowed on us. He was and is patient with us even in our sinful state.
As believers, when we have fallen short of God’s praise, the Holy Spirit does not stop His work in our lives. He keeps focusing/refocusing on God’s glory that is in the face of Jesus. When we were sinners, the Holy Spirit kept convicting our hearts of the need for Christ. Despite how we rebuff and repel him. He’s patient, showing us His kindness as a token of what Christ did.
So, this Love is inspired in our hearts by sincere introspective knowledge of realizing how much of God's patience, goodness, and kindness we have enjoyed. Without this knowledge, you can never walk in this dimension of Love that exhibits kindness and Patience when offended.
Are you indeed aware of the amount of perseverance and tolerance the Holy Spirit has as regards our flaws and mistakes? Yet, in His kindness, He seeks to raise us and set us where we are up and running for the Lord.
Take a look at another Scripture, Ephesians 4:2:
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love,”
In the text above, Paul described “Patience” as “bearing with one another.” It also means “making allowance for each other fault or error.” Or “cutting slack on people.”
The level of irritability of many believers is overwhelmingly high. These people always find faults in how people eat, walk, sit, and many other individual habits. They are just irritated the moment someone is doing something besides the way they do it. But that is not How Love operates. That is carnality! What the Love of Christ does in us is to give us a large heart that would accommodate people, irrespective of individual differences in traits and habits.
Do you have a large heart? The reason we don't have a large heart is because something else has occupied our hearts. The unregenerated heart is full of hate, sentiment, ego, tribalism, selfishness, and the like. However, the Love of Christ is a purifying fire, ready to burn all those things. You need to be humble at Jesus’ feet: see His love for you, and allow him to work out His love in your lives through His Spirit.
I Corinthians 13:4 NKJV
At the close of the previous article, I started to Share about the behavior of Love from 1 Corinthians 13.
How does love behave?
It's essential to know and understand how Love behaves in the Bible. Else, what we would be carrying in our mind is the societal definition of what Love is. But our society is not licensed to define Love because they don't know about it.
God is Love. Love only comes from Him. For us, It is only a relationship with Him that will guarantee us access to understand and express His Divine Love.
The first behavior of Love (From 1 Corinthians 13) I started to share in the last article is “Love is patient and Kind.”
Patience is a premium in our society today. Society has been shaped in such a way that you can have whatever you want quickly. Different things have been tagged with the word “fast”—Fast-food, Fast-track, and the like. These fast processes have rubbed on many minds, which has affected how they relate to people.
However, we need to know that God's love operates with patience.
How is patience manifested in Love?
1 Corinthians 13:4 tells us that Love stimulates both patience and kindness. That means that the Patience that manifests as a result of love does not react negatively or keep quiet when someone has done her wrong. Instead, she shows kindness to someone who has done wrong to her.
That is what love looks like on a man, such that instead of demanding your right, you are patient with the offender and would even go further to being kind.
So, when a man is propelled by Agape Love, He will be patient with the offender and be kind to Him. That is Love—Agape! Therefore, you cannot separate Patience and kindness when it is propelled by love. It looks like a passive and active dimension of Love; one side endures, and the other side—is beneficence. It is the same coin, so you cannot pick.
With all these and more that Love does, it is easy to say no man has the inherent capacity to replicate such. However, this is the life God expects us to live. So, how can we live up to those expectations? I believe if we can carefully consider how God relates with us, we will have an answer.
“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” Romans 2:4
When we look at our lives in the mirror of God's love, we will see the riches of God's goodness (kindness) and the patience He bestowed on us. He was and is patient with us even in our sinful state.
As believers, when we have fallen short of God’s praise, the Holy Spirit does not stop His work in our lives. He keeps focusing/refocusing on God’s glory that is in the face of Jesus. When we were sinners, the Holy Spirit kept convicting our hearts of the need for Christ. Despite how we rebuff and repel him. He’s patient, showing us His kindness as a token of what Christ did.
So, this Love is inspired in our hearts by sincere introspective knowledge of realizing how much of God's patience, goodness, and kindness we have enjoyed. Without this knowledge, you can never walk in this dimension of Love that exhibits kindness and Patience when offended.
Are you indeed aware of the amount of perseverance and tolerance the Holy Spirit has as regards our flaws and mistakes? Yet, in His kindness, He seeks to raise us and set us where we are up and running for the Lord.
Take a look at another Scripture, Ephesians 4:2:
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love,”
In the text above, Paul described “Patience” as “bearing with one another.” It also means “making allowance for each other fault or error.” Or “cutting slack on people.”
The level of irritability of many believers is overwhelmingly high. These people always find faults in how people eat, walk, sit, and many other individual habits. They are just irritated the moment someone is doing something besides the way they do it. But that is not How Love operates. That is carnality! What the Love of Christ does in us is to give us a large heart that would accommodate people, irrespective of individual differences in traits and habits.
Do you have a large heart? The reason we don't have a large heart is because something else has occupied our hearts. The unregenerated heart is full of hate, sentiment, ego, tribalism, selfishness, and the like. However, the Love of Christ is a purifying fire, ready to burn all those things. You need to be humble at Jesus’ feet: see His love for you, and allow him to work out His love in your lives through His Spirit.
Be blessed
The article was written by Peter Ayoola Fakeye (PAF)
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