What Love Looks Like

Patient and Kind

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Paul’s picture of love begins with two words: patient and kind. Before those words tell us what to do, they tell us what God is like. Love begins with Him.

Suffers long. “Love suffers long and is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4). To suffer long means to wait a long time before getting angry, and to keep on loving.

God is patient. When God showed Moses His glory, He called Himself “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” (Exodus 34:6). Longsuffering means slow to anger.

Patient with people. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9). God waits so that more people can come to Him.

Patience with a purpose. “The goodness of God leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). God’s kindness is meant to draw us back to Him.

A father who waited. Jesus told a story about a son who ran away and wasted everything. When he came home, “when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).

What the story shows. The father had been watching the road. He did not wait for a perfect speech. That is how God welcomes anyone who comes home to Him.

Kind. Kindness is love in action. It does good things for people, even people who do not deserve it. Kindness notices people who are left out.

Jesus was kind. He touched people with skin disease, welcomed children, ate with outsiders and fed hungry crowds. He was never too busy to love someone. He even healed the ear of a man who came to arrest Him (Luke 22:51).

Kindness and forgiveness. “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). We are kind because God has been kind to us.

The Spirit grows it. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness” (Galatians 5:22). Patience and kindness are fruit. They grow as we stay close to Jesus.

Not a test. You do not have to become patient and kind to earn God’s love. He has already been patient and kind to you in Jesus, who died for you and rose again.

What to do. This week, when someone annoys you, stop and take a slow breath. Ask Jesus to help you be patient, the way He is patient with you. Then do one kind thing for that person.

Verse 4 opens Paul’s picture of love with two positive verbs, patient and kind. Both describe God before they describe us.

Slow to anger. The Old Testament describes God again and again as “Slow to anger” (Psalm 103:8; 145:8). That is the long-tempered love of 1 Corinthians 13:4.

Exodus 34:6. When God passed before Moses, He named Himself “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth.” Israel had just made the golden calf. God’s patience showed up right after their sin.

2 Peter 3:9. God’s delay in judgment is not weakness but patience. He is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Chresteuetai. “Is kind” is chresteuetai (say: kray-STEW-eh-tai). It comes from a word meaning useful or good. Kind love is not only gentle; it does good. It looks for what will actually help.

Romans 2:4. Paul uses a related word for God’s goodness: “the goodness of God leads you to repentance.” Kindness is meant to draw people to God, not to excuse their sin.

Luke 15:20. In the parable, the father sees his son “a great way off” and runs. In that culture an older man running in public lost his dignity. The father’s love was patient (he had been watching) and kind (he ran).

The older brother. The same story shows a son who stayed home but had no love for his brother (Luke 15:28-30). He had duty without love, which is the problem of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

Jesus with Peter. Peter denied Jesus three times. After the resurrection, Jesus restored him with three questions about love (John 21:15-17). That is longsuffering love.

Ephesians 4:32. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” The pattern is always God first, then us.

Galatians 5:22. Longsuffering and kindness sit side by side in the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit is not manufactured. It grows from the life inside the branch (John 15:5).

Not earned. None of this is a ladder to God’s approval. Jesus was patient and kind in our place, and He died and rose so that sinners could be welcomed home like the son in the story.

Application. Patience is tested most by the people closest to you: brothers, sisters and classmates. Ask the Spirit for long-tempered love, and look for one useful kindness you can do this week without being asked.

Not Proud, Not Keeping Score

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After patient and kind, Paul lists things love does not do. Each one is a kind of pride or selfishness that love leaves behind.

Does not envy. Envy is being upset when someone else has something good. Love is glad for others.

Does not show off. Love “does not parade itself, is not puffed up” (1 Corinthians 13:4). It does not brag or act like a balloon full of air.

Jesus did the opposite. Jesus is God the Son. Yet He “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant” (Philippians 2:7). A bondservant is a servant.

Washing feet. On the night before the cross, Jesus took a towel and a bowl of water and washed His disciples’ dusty feet. That was a servant’s job (John 13:1-17).

Does not behave rudely. Love has good manners. It does not treat people as if they do not matter.

Does not seek its own. Love is not selfish. “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4).

Is not provoked. Love is not touchy, and it does not explode when things go wrong. “Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (James 1:19).

Thinks no evil. Love does not keep a list of wrongs. The ICB says, “Love does not remember wrongs done against it.” That is how God forgives us: “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12).

God keeps no score. When we confess our sins, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:9). He does not bring up forgiven sins again.

Forgive like Jesus. Paul wrote, “even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do” (Colossians 3:13).

Glad about truth. Love “does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Love never laughs when someone gets in trouble.

The new commandment. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).

Love in the church. The Corinthians argued about whose gift was best. Love would have made them glad for each other and quick to serve. Love does the same in your home, at school and on your team.

What to do. Is there someone you have been keeping score with? Ask Jesus to help you forgive, and tear up the list in your heart.

Verses 4-6 turn to what love refuses to do. The Corinthians struggled with nearly every item on the list: envy over gifts, showing off, pride, rudeness at the Lord’s Supper (11:20-22), lawsuits (6:1-8) and divisions (1:10-12).

Envy and boasting. Love “does not envy; love does not parade itself.” The word for parade means to brag like a windbag. In a church competing over gifts, love is glad when God uses someone else.

Puffed up. Earlier in the letter Paul warned that knowledge can puff a person up, but love builds others up (8:1).

Philippians 2:5-8. Christ “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant.” The opposite of being puffed up is being poured out for others.

The foot washing. In John 13, Jesus did the job of the lowest servant, then told His disciples to do the same for one another. Love picks up the towel.

Not seeking its own. “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself” (Philippians 2:3). Esteem means value.

Not provoked. The word gives us the English word paroxysm, a sudden fit. Love does not have a hair trigger (James 1:19-20).

Logizetai. “Thinks no evil” uses logizetai (say: loh-GID-zeh-tai), an accounting word meaning to count or to put on someone’s account. Love does not keep a ledger of wrongs to collect on later.

God’s accounting. Paul uses the same verb when he writes of the person whose sin the Lord does not count against him (Romans 4:8), and of God not counting people’s sins against them in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Forgiven people forgive. “Even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do” (Colossians 3:13). We cancel debts because ours were canceled at the cross, where Jesus paid for our sins before He rose again.

Seen in Jesus. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus served His disciples and did not lash out at the men who came for Him. The next day He prayed for those who crucified Him (Luke 23:34).

Rejoices in the truth (13:6). Love never enjoys gossip or someone else’s failure. It celebrates what is true and right.

Love at home. Envy and score-keeping often show up first with brothers and sisters. Love is practiced there before it is seen anywhere else.

Application. Pride and score-keeping hide easily. Ask the Spirit to show you one list you are keeping, then hand it to Jesus, who erased yours.

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