What Love Is

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient and kind. (1 Corinthians 13:4)

IF YOU WERE TO SURVEY THE comments made by Christians at the end of news articles and blogs today and draw conclusions about Christianity only from those sources and nowhere else, you would come away with the impression that the Christian faith is contentious, pretentious, hard-edged, superficial, and somewhat arrogant. You would certainly find some exceptions to those descriptions, but the majority of comments would be enough to convince you of them. You would have to wade through a lot of contrary evidence to find “patient and kind” in the mix.

Perhaps that’s because people who tend to comment on such articles and blogs are not representative of Christianity in general or because the nature of the forum itself (anonymous argumentation) tends to bring out the worst in people. Even so, the church is full of people who demonstrate quite a few characteristics that would never be described as patient or kind. We are not known for our love.

That has to change. Love is meant to be the distinguishing characteristic of followers of Jesus, and when it isn’t, people cannot see him for who he is. God wants his people, who are called not to fit in but to go against the flow, to express his kindness and patience to a cruel and impatient world. These are gifts of his Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and they are nonnegotiable.

The problem is that human nature falls short of these goals. That’s okay; we are never told to continue living from our old human nature. We have options. We can choose each morning to walk in the supernatural patience and kindness of God, to lean back into his Spirit rather than to push ahead in our own tendencies. A decision each day to rely on the power within us can make a dramatic difference, even when we need to be reminded of that decision in the heat of the moment. Salt and light need to look a lot like their source. The best way to do that—really the only effective way—is to let the Spirit of kindness and patience reign in our hearts.

{Father, you have been amazingly patient with me, and your kindness toward me has known no limits. May I never be so hypocritical as to withhold patience and kindness from others. Fill me, empower me, and move me with the nature of your love. Amen.