After a very innocent conversation with my eldest child the other day, I realised that I am a long way from loving like God loves. My seemingly innocent reply to why I would do something for her, but not one of her friends ("because she's not my daughter, you are, and I'd do anything for you"), has played on my mind. It's not that I don't like my daughter's friend, I just don't love her like I love my own daughter.
But that's not really a good reply I gave, and indeed it's played on my mind, because I've demonstrated that I'll be happy to do things only for those people I feel great affection for, and not for others. This isn't how God has called me to operate, or to teach my children.
It's clear I need a reminder of what God's love actually is.
God's love is called hesed in the Old Testament (in Hebrew), and agape in the New Testament (Greek). Paul gave us the best definition of it in 1 Corinthians 13, and it shows us how God's love indwelling us should be flowing out of us.
Love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant. It is not rude; it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]; it does not take into account a wrong endured. It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]. Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening]. Love never fails [it never fades nor ends]
"Love endures with patience and serenity,"
~ God is unimaginably patient. You may see patience referred to as long suffering in the bible. This Greek work is made up of two words meaning long and passion (long-passioned, or long tempered) - 'makrothumia' in Greek. It means that no matter what the circumstances, someone with makrothumia would wait sufficient time before expressing anger. It's the opposite of being short tempered. God is very slow to anger with us - despite the fact our conduct, attitude, words, thoughts and deeds are worthy of His anger. No matter what we do to Him, others and ourselves, because of His great love, He is patient with us. A quality or attribute I often lack."love is kind and thoughtful;"
~ God is incredibly kind. The Greek work kind (chrésteuomai) comes from the word Chrestos and it encompasses the following meanings: benevolent, useful. It sounds a lot like Christos, the Greek for for Christ! But it is interesting that the word means more than just being kind, it involves usefulness, or being useful. God doesn't just call us to be kind. He asks us to actually do stuff - go out and BE useful. Go serve in church, be useful to your leadership team. Go be useful in your workplace, go above and beyond. No one went more above and beyond than Jesus!"and is not jealous or envious"
~The Greek for for jealous means to be heated or to boil with envy, hatred, anger. It isn't always used in a negative sense. It's root word means to bubble over with, and it is used in many scriptures with positive connotations such as bubbling over with zeal to God. However, here it is bubbling over with envy towards others, which is not good. God's love doesn't become envious or jealous towards others, so no matter how much someone else is getting blessed, receiving favour, even when it isn't due (in our opinion), we should not be moved with jealousy."love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant"
~ This one's an interesting one. In place of using the word brag, some translations say "is not boastful" and the Greek word perpereuomai means a 'braggart, someone who shows off', or interestingly, 'someone who needs attention'. This is the only occurrence of this word in the New Testament. I look around and I see a lot of people who like the spot light on them, and like a lot of attention. However, God's love doesn't seek attention and brag or boast. The word used for arrogant is the Greek phusioó and it means 'puffed up, inflate by blowing; (figuratively) swelled up, like an egotistical person spewing out arrogant ("puffed-up") thoughts.' Lucifer was a prime example of being puffed up. In fact there's a recurring theme of leaven being a symbol of sin throughout the bible. The leaven "puffs up" the dough, because of the origins of the very first sin being rooted in pride, this idea of "puffing up" like pride is synonymous with sin in general. Pride or arrogance often paves the road to sin. There's no place for bragging, attention seeking or pride in God's love. He is humble and gentle in spirit."It is not rude; it is not self-seeking"
~ The Greek meaning of rude, or acting unbecomingly is to "act improperly, unseemly". Its root word (aschema) literally means without shape or without form ("a" means without, "schema" means shape or form). It conveys a sense of lacking proper appeal (form), i.e. uncomely (unattractive); lacking respect because improper (not fitting, un-presentable). Even more interestingly, the word schema is used to describe Jesus' earthly body (Phil 2:7,8 - he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man). So this word rude carries with it much more than what we would generally think of as being rude. In the original language rudeness causes someone to be unseemly, and even more than that, conveys a sense of lacking form or appearance. What exactly does being rude do to us in the spiritual realm? Seemingly much more than we can physically see with our eyes. It robs us of something deeper, it robs us of the form that God created us to be.
Not self seeking needs to be broken down into its component Greek parts:
Zeteo - seeking or desiring, demanding,
heautou - a reflexive 3rd person pronoun. This basically means it translates as "herself" or himself" or "itself".
ou - nay, neither, never, no
So basically translated it means never seeking of itself, or not being self-demanding. The pattern emerging here is that all this stuff revolves around self. If we looking inwards to ourselves seeking our our pride, recognition, boasting in ourselves and our efforts, then we're completely off track with God's love.
Let's move on
"it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]"
~ The Greek for provoked is "paroxunó" from "paroksýnō" made up from two Greek words : pará, "alongside" and oxys, "a sharp edge". And the full definition given for the word is 'cut close alongside, i.e. to incite ("jab") someone and stimulate their feelings (emotions); become emotionally provoked (upset, roused to anger), as personally "getting to someone"; (figuratively) to provoke feelings, spurring someone to action'. Some people really do feel like they have a sharp edge; their words are sharp, their facial expressions are sharp, and you feel like you've mentally or emotionally been cut when you've had an encounter with them. There's no place in God's love for that, but more than that, God's love isn't provoked by such people, their remarks or their looks. That's a tough one, because people who are abrasive do hurt your feelings. But it doesn't say you don't feel the hurt, it must be understood with the second part of the verse:"it does not take into account a wrong endured."
We get our word logical from the Greek word logizomai which means "account, compute, take into account; reckon (come to a "bottom-line"), i.e. reason to a logical conclusion (decision)". It conveys a meaning of taking an inventory, and concluding. This stocking up of a list of wrongs is vividly borught to life here. But the word for wrongs is more challenging than you may first surmise. The Greek is Kakos and means "bad, evil, in the widest sense". It's root word, kakia means inwardly foul, rotten (poisoned); (figuratively) inner malice flowing out of a morally-rotten character. This isn't just a wrong, this is pure evil. Taking no account, keeping no record of even the most wretched wrong you can encounter. That is God's love."It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]"
~ We have the word rejoice used twice in this verse, but two slightly different words in the Greek are used. The first is chairó which means "is glad", and the root word means literally "to lean towards grace" or to "experience God's grace (favor), be conscious (glad) for His grace."
It is used with the word "not" so there is no gladness and no grace at injustice (meaning doing wrong, evildoers, iniquities, iniquity, injustice, unrighteous, unrighteousness , wickedness, wrong.)
The next word rejoice is sugchairó and means to "rejoice with, congratulate". It comes from a root word sygxaírō which means:
sýn, "identify with" and xaírō, "rejoicing in God's grace" as we saw above.
The definition for this root word is : "sharing God's grace with another person, so that both rejoice together, mutually participate in God's favour, grace."
Truth is defined as "truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness".
We are to identify with and rejoice and congratulate when truth abounds.
"Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening]."
~ The word panta (from the word pas) is used four times for "all things", and that's exactly it's transliteration into English.
Bears = stega which means to place under roof, to cover-over (with a roof); (figuratively) to endure because shielded, i.e. bearing up (forbearing) because under the Lord's protection (covering). It's from a root stege which is a flat roof. Thayer adds to this meaning by explaining that it means to cover over with silence; to keep secret; to hide, conceal; hides and excuses, the errors and faults of others.
Believes = pisteuó believe, have faith in, trust in
Hope = elpizó to hope for, to expect; actively waiting for God's fulfillment about the faith
Bible hope is more than worldly hope : it is a confident expectation of good. It comes from the word elpís meaning expectation, trust, confidence, anticipation!
Endures = hupomenó made of the words hupo meaning under, and meno meaning remain or abide. So it means to remain under, await, bearing up (enduring); for the believer, this uniquely happens by God's power. It is further defined as "bear (trials), have fortitude, persevere -- abide, endure, (take) patient(-ly), suffer, tarry behind.""Love never fails [it never fades nor ends]"
agape oudepote piptó
This must be one of the most beautiful phrases in the bible.
Agape - There are a number of words for love in Greek. Agape is a special word for love, and it is primarily used of God's love, used 116 times in the New Testament. It's difficult to fully define, but Strongs defines it as "love which centres in moral preference." The definition of agape love lies in this idea of preference and goodwill. The preference is outwards - towards God, and ultimately towards those that God has created in His image and His likeness. It is not preference for or towards ourselves.
oudepote is made from two words, oude (not, neither) and pote (at any time) meaning not ever, or at no time.
piptó means to fall, fail, fall down.
The love of God never at any time fails or falls down. It never ends.
If that kind of love seems impossible, if you think "But I simply cannot love like this", you're not alone. My human love is not even this good towards the people I love most. I get annoyed and cross with the people I love. Sometimes, I'm not kind, even to those I love the most. Sometimes, I'm not even kind to myself.
How am I supposed to love others with this kind of love? Thankfully we don't have to. We just have to let God love through us. It's only His love that can love like this. If we have His love in us, we let His love out to love others like this. It doesn't depend on feelings; it depends on faith.