Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Agape love = God love. This isn’t a human love or feeling, it is a divine love from the Father’s heart that is imparted to those who have the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit and are allowing Him to move in their lives. We can’t achieve this love by our own merit or striving. It comes from the divinely implanted fruit placed there by God Himself. We then have to trust the Lord and act on the fruit by His instructions. It is by relationship and intimacy with the Holy Spirit that we learn what and how this fruit works and moves.
Now knowing this – we can look at how this fruit is described in the above verses. Patience and kindness are also fruit of the Spirit and must be implanted into us by His hand. Envy and pride (boasting) are of the fleshly nature. I think arrogance breeds rudeness.
God’s love does not insist on its own way. Ouch! Am I being selfish and myopic? This obviously takes a perspective and an awareness of God’s heart beyond our own little circle of self. God’s love is not irritable or resentful. What does that exactly mean? The Greek word ‘irritable’ here is parozuno meaning arouse anger, provoke, or irritate, or to purposely incite (jab) someone and stimulate their feelings (emotions) to anger. And the word ‘resentful’ the Greek word is actually translated from three words — logizomai, ho, and kakos. Logizomai meaning to reckon, count, charge with, and conclude. Ho meaning ‘the’, and Kakos meaning bad, evil, in the wildest sense, thinking that the person is morally rotten and malice is flowing out of a morally rotten character. So, all together it is charging someone by counting things (like holding a grudge against them) as coming from a very evil morally rotten character. This is all translated into one word – ‘resentful’.
Does our resentfulness towards a person keep us blind to the things the person does after the time we have counted them to be ‘evil’ or bad? What if the person is actually doing things out of love towards us and we still have a grudge against them, are we able to see those acts and receive them as love? Does resentfulness build bitterness in our souls? Do you keep a record of all the things you think someone has done you ‘wrong’? Do you bring up the past (remembered and recorded) wrongs every time when you are in an argument with them? Is that the fruit of love towards that person? Or are you quickly irritated because of the ‘storehouse’ of recorded wrongs you are holding onto towards that person?
Love forgives. Love bears, hopes, and endures all things. This is the heart of God. Are you allowing His love to overtake you and change you? This will only happen by a yielded and surrendered heart to the Holy Spirit’s instructions. Is He pricking your heart to forgive and let go of all that resentfulness and bitterness? Maybe we need the ‘eye salve’ from Jesus to help us see correctly and not be blinded by our own resentfulness.
I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Revelation 3:18
Check in with the Holy Spirit often on how you are doing. Are there things you need to let go of? With His help we are able to do that.