Love Needs Some Spring Cleaning

Scripture

4Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 1 Corinthians 13:4-5

Observation

Paul describes the distinguishing marks of Agape love, the love of Christ. This is in contrast with the more common loves. The Greeks had four words for love: Eros- romantic or sexual love, Storge- affection or familial love, Phileo- friendship or partnership. It’s said that phileo is the highest form of love man can achieve apart from God. Yet, Paul, challenges us to live out the agape love, the love that chooses to love with no expectations of reciprocity or reward. It’s not based in emotion as the other loves tend to be.

Application

Agape love is Christ’s love as it is sacrificial on behalf of another. We get our English agony from the Greek word agape. The problem is that we don’t like to be in agony. We like pleasure, not pain. We romanticize and prioritize love that serves us. We don’t want to deny ourselves on behalf of another if we get nothing in return. So, we crowd out this higher love with the lower loves and justify our divorces, hatred, bitterness, offenses and divisions in the process. I just had the privilege of officiating a wedding on Friday. As I looked at Kevin and Michelle, now Mr. and Mrs. Tran, I gave them the same challenge my Pop gave Cyndi and I when he married us. Keep no record of wrongs! It’s amazing how each of us become expert bookkeepers when it comes to the wrongs done to us. When we first learn to love each other we see only the good. The longer we are with each other the easier it gets to see only the bad. When we get into an argument we pull these files out and begin to thumb through them with the exuberance of an IRS agent at an audit. We can’t seem to remember what people have done right over the years, but we are incredibly accurate in remembering and recounting and re-enacting the offenses done to us. A relationship can’t last under these conditions when instead we are supposed to love unconditionally. According to Biblical scholar Duzik, “To keep no record of wrongs literally means “love does not store up the memory of any wrong it has received.” Love will put away the hurts of the past instead of clinging to them. One writer tells of a tribe in Polynesia where it was customary for each man to keep some reminders of his hatred for others. These reminders were suspended from the roofs of their huts to keep alive the memory of the wrongs, real or imagined. Most of us do the same. Real love “never supposes that a good action may have a bad motive … The original implies that he does not invent or devise any evil.” (Clarke). Can you imagine the health of every relationship in our lives if we actually started every day by burning up the record of wrongs from yesterday? Everyone is doing spring cleaning right now. I think our spring cleaning needs to be applied to more than our old clothes and instead to our love of record keeping. Let’s make some room in our hearts to love those in our lives as we did when we first loved them. Let's come out from under the weight and clutter of so many wrongs and let love breathe again!

Prayer

You have forgiven me. You have loved me unconditionally. You have called me to love others in the same way! I can’t love, agape love, without You, Holy Spirit, filling me, and showing me how You see those around me! I receive Your agape love so I can give Your love. It’s a choice, not an emotion or feeling.