Today’s Encouragement is, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-5a NLT
Love is –
This begins the most complete description of godly love in the Bible. It’s a description that few, if any, can live up to. We are all fallen sinners, saved by Grace alone, who struggle to be all that God has called us to be and equipped us to become. And here is the description of our perfect standard.
Because we know that God is Love (1 John 4:8), is it possible that – all these characteristics of Love can be attributed to Him? If so, then:
God is patient and kind. God is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
[We sometimes, mistakenly, consider our human emotions to be the same as God’s emotions. He is perfect (and we ain’t!), so when He is described as jealous elsewhere, it is perfect jealousy. He has no tolerance for people having any other gods. However, because He is also patient and kind, this jealousy isn’t angry, raging, and bitter like our human jealousy.
Because God is Love and Perfect, every aspect of Him is expressed in this Love. When we exhibit, live out, and express Love, we are obeying Him and experiencing the fullness and abundance of the life He has given us, the believer’s Life! The Jesus Way!
Our Great and Loving Father, we fail too often to be the loving people that You created us to be. Help us continue to look to You, letting Your Spirit, that lives within us, bring Your Love out of us so that we too are patient and kind.
The Jesus’ Way
Phil Wickham
Today’s Encouragement 