Stifled Love, Part 2

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.”  1 Corinthians 13:1-8

Paul defines the positives of love by writing what love is not -
- is not jealous.
- does not brag.
- is not arrogant.
- does not act unbecomingly.
- does not seek its own.
- is not provoked.
- does not take into account a wrong suffered.
- does not rejoice in unrighteousness.
                   
Each one of those avenues, when ignored, leads to a life of stifled love, a condition which extinguishes the burning flame of true, genuine, God-given love. Are any of those qualities lacking in your life, keeping you from expressing the love of Jesus to others?
       
“Loved with everlasting love,
Led by grace that love to know;
Spirit, breathing from above,
Thou hast taught me it is so!
Oh, this full and perfect peace!
Oh, this transport all divine!
In a love which cannot cease,
I am His, and He is mine.”               
             - George W. Robinson

God, fill me with your unconditional love, and let me love others as you love me.