Choose Love (30 page)

When we are constantly demanding our rights, or insisting that we have the best, or helping ourselves to the biggest and best of everything without a thought as to the needs of others around us, then we are seeking our own. Someone who always takes the best for themselves and never considers offering the best to anyone else is selfish.

Love doesn’t mean never thinking about yourself. That isn’t good either. It means that you think about other people besides yourself. Love is not thinking,
Me first
, and
What can I get for myself?

Other words and phrases for “seeking its own” are
self-serving, self-advancement, self-promotion, self-devotion, self-absorbed, self-driven, self-interest, personal ambition, narcissism, and wrapped up in oneself.

When we speak in such a way that makes someone else look bad while making ourselves look good, we reveal our lovelessness and God is not pleased. “Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy” (Psalm 101:5). Not pleased at all.

Selfishness is all about seeking everything for yourself, such
as rights, focus, attention, and material things. It’s always saying, “What’s in it for
me
?” “How does this promote
me
?” “How does this serve
my
interests?” “How does this make
me
look important?” “How does this serve
my
needs?”

When we don’t seek our own will but seek God’s will first, He fills us with His love so that we can look out for the rights and needs of others.

Being Easily Annoyed Reveals a Lack of Love for Others

Love is not provoked
.

Have you ever observed someone who is easily angered, frequently irritable, offended, and touchy? They are not willing to let even the most minor incidents of what they perceive to be slights go past them. They
look
for things to be irritated about and don’t stop to see if the person who has caused their anger perhaps did not intend it the way they took it. They get annoyed over nothing. In fact, they enjoy finding reasons to be upset.

This is not to say that if you ever have had any of these feelings you are a loveless person. We all can feel any of these ways at one time or another and with good reason. But for some people, acting like this has become a way of life. They secretly think they are justified in doing so. Again, the “It’s all about me” syndrome is in effect.

Other words and phrases for “provoked” are
annoyed, aggravated, incensed, miffed, peeved, ruffled, exasperated, bothered, harried, driven up the wall, plagued, irked, hassled, irritated, soured, vexed, and get on one’s nerves.

It’s up to us to see these signs of lovelessness in ourselves. If we are easily provoked, it’s a sign that the love of God is not manifesting clearly in us. Yes, there are people who can be irritating or provoking, but we need to do the loving thing in the situation, whatever that may be. We must determine to overlook things people say and not be brought down by them. We will be a lot happier that way.

Ask God to teach you how to deal with irritating and loveless
people. Do you mention it? Or do you quietly pray? He will show you. In the meantime, ask God to put love in your heart for the irritating, exasperating, and annoying people in your life. You know, the kind who are easily provoked.

Entertaining Bad Thoughts Reveals a Lack of Love for Others

Love thinks no evil
.

People who entertain evil thoughts are usually thinking them about other people—or about doing something that will affect other people adversely. A person who thinks bad thoughts has guile. In other words, they have an insidious cunning in trying to do something hurtful through clever deception.

If we have no ulterior motives, no selfish agenda, no secret schemes or plans, or no concocting a way to serve our selfish needs at the expense of others, then that means we have no guile.

Other words for “guile” are
deceit, underhandedness, duplicity, craftiness, suspicious, cunning, sneakiness, insidiousness, concealment, stealthiness, slippery, snaky, slick, calculating, tricky, foxy, shrewd, and sly.

If we love others, we don’t sit around thinking about how much we don’t like them, how we wish they would be removed from our lives, and what bad thing we would like to do to them. We don’t keep a record of all the wrongs that have been done to us and take it out on the people who did them. We don’t allow unforgiveness and revenge to be the way we operate. We get rid of resentment and let things go.

When we think evil thoughts, they show on our face and in our personality and in the way we relate to others. Others can see evil thinking in a person, even if they can’t identify exactly what it is—and it makes them uncomfortable.

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with
her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28). This shows that our thoughts can have just as much sin in them as our actions. So who, then, is exempt from evil thoughts? Who among us has not thought—even for a moment—that a certain person we know of would make the world a better place if they were suddenly removed from it? When we have thoughts like that, we have to repent immediately before God and ask Him to give us a pure heart of love that is never infiltrated by evil thinking.

Celebrating Someone’s Downfall Reveals a Lack of Love for Others

Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth
.

This means we hate what God hates and love what He loves. He loves His truth and His people. If we are happy when an injustice happens to someone, or gleeful when we see others fail or their shortcomings revealed, or we look forward to spreading bad news about someone, we are rejoicing in iniquity. If we, instead, look forward to sharing
good
things about people and situations, and we rejoice in every manifestation of truth, and we are not happy about another’s suffering or downfall, then we have love in our heart for them. If we despise inequality of treatment, or any impropriety or unlawfulness, or we have disdain for anything that should not be, and we do not celebrate evil, error, villainy, abominations, atrocity, disgrace, impropriety, transgression, trespasses, moral weakness, wickedness, unwholesomeness, or sin, then that pleases God and shows our love for Him and others.

Other words and phrases for “iniquity” are
injustice, wrongfulness, what should not be, unlawfulness, illegality, wrong, error, abomination, inequity, scandal, viciousness, vileness, foulness, heinousness, criminal activity, indiscretion, dereliction, crime and reprehensibility.

Rejoicing in the truth means celebrating
God’s
truth about someone, not the glaring and appalling truth you see as they manifest the way they are. It means seeing their potential and not their failure.
You recognize what
God
says about them and not what others say to disparage them.

The opposite of love is racism. It’s everything Jesus is not. It goes against all that God is and does. It’s evil. It’s demonic at its source and in its perpetuation. It’s a ploy of the enemy to steal, kill, and destroy everyone involved—the hated as well as the haters. Its cruelty comes from a dark place, “for the dark places of the earth are full of the haunts of cruelty” (Psalm 74:20). Racism is a haunt of cruelty. It perfectly sums up what celebrating evil is about. It illustrates what rejoicing in iniquity means. It’s vile and evil, and perpetuators of it will pay a high and regrettable price.

All of the above characteristics of what love is
not
show us how to recognize a lack of love in our own hearts. They help us to recognize a lack of love in others as well, but for the purpose of praying for them to come to the Lord to get free.

There is a price to pay for lovelessness, but the good news is that we don’t have to live this way. God can free us from all of that and keep our hearts filled with His love. But this is a choice we make. We choose to let our heart overflow with God’s love, we choose to express our love for Him, and in the process our heart of love overflows to others. This is seen in the way we talk to and act toward people, and it pleases them as well as God.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, help me to recognize anything in me that reveals a lack of love in my heart for others. Teach me to understand what love
is
by also understanding what love is
not
. Help me to never envy others, but to be happy for all that they
have
or
are
. Thank You that You have given me so much for which I am grateful. Keep me from ever flaunting, parading, or drawing attention to myself. Make me aware of the way I am presenting myself to others so that I do not make anyone feel bad but rather loved.

Help me to want what
You
want more than what
I
want. Keep me from being easily provoked, irritated, or hurt. Remove from my heart all pride. I know it can only lead to destruction because it’s blatant rebellion against You. Save me from ever becoming haughty and aligning myself with the enemy. Stop me from becoming wise in my own eyes because I know You are merciful to humble people and You bring down those who are haughty (Psalm 18:27).

Give me a heart that is sensitive to others so that I am never rude or selfish. Fill my heart and mind with Your truth so that I never entertain evil thoughts. Keep me from celebrating another’s bad news or downfall. Enable me to discard any offense from an irritating person so I can let it go and not carry it like a burden. Help me to love others in the way You want me to, and to reject all indications of lovelessness in me.

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, but a good man will be satisfied from above.

P
ROVERBS
14:14

L
ORD
, You have heard the desire of the humble;

You will prepare their heart;

You will cause Your ear to hear.

P
SALM
10:17

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

P
ROVERBS
14:12

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.

1 P
ETER
5:6

Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.

1 C
ORINTHIANS
10:23-24

18

How Will Others Know I Am God’s?

I
t must grieve God’s heart to see His children fighting over small things instead of rejoicing over big things. We fight over things that divide instead of rejoicing together over the things that unite us, such as the miracle of Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, and His unconditional love, mercy, and grace toward us.

People can’t even agree on the Holy Spirit. There is probably more disagreement on that very subject in the body of Christ than any other because of two extremes—people who can’t even say the words “Holy Spirit,” and others who allow themselves to get crazy, scary, and weird in the name of the Holy Spirit. Is it a coincidence that those two extremes least exemplify the love of God?

Those who can barely acknowledge that the Holy Spirit exists don’t allow Him to pour His peace, comfort, and love into them. They don’t want Him interrupting
their
plans for
their
life. Those at the other extreme are so into
themselves
and
their experience
that the last thing they are thinking about is how to show the love of God toward others.

Both camps love their experience more than they love God. I know that may sound harsh, but I have seen these extremes a number of times in various places and, believe me, I do not sense the
love of God or the presence of the Holy Spirit in either one. I sense a movement of the flesh.

The same is true for those who are loveless, self-proclaimed critics of other Christians. I am not talking about those who speak the truth into another’s life because they deeply love that person and want the best for them. Don’t worry if you are wondering if that is you. Those people will not be reading a book on love because the love of God is not what they are interested in. They are interested in bringing other people down and not building them up in the things of God.