The Intentionality of Love
9-26-2010

How intentional is love? People talk about falling in love. That's love at first sight. It's really not love at all we fall into but attraction. Love at last sight is more than a feeling. It's an action that produces powerful feelings. Real love is intentional to the core. Let's look at our key passage in this Faith Builder and see if we can identify 16 characteristics of real love. Here's a hint. There are seven positive characteristics that describe what love is like and nine negative characteristics describing what love is not like. Circle the positive characteristics in this passage and underline the negative ones.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a (NIV)

"4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails..."

So what did you discover about real love? How intentional is it? Let's break it down a bit more to see.

1. Love is patient - The Greek word is "makrothumein". In the New Testament it always describes patience with people and not patience with circumstances. One biblical scholar said it is the word used of the man who is wronged and who has it easily in his power to avenge himself and who yet will not do it. It describes the man who is slow to anger and it is used of God himself in his relationship with men. To love like that you have to be intentional.
2. Love is kind - Love is impossible without kindness. Love without kindness is like springtime without flowers, like fire without heat. In Ephesians 4:32 we are told' "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." This is the positive side. How kind is your love? To demonstrate love through acts of kindness you have to be intentional.
3. Love does not envy - There are really two kinds of envy. One covets what another has and wishes they had it. The other is worse - it begrudges the fact that the other has anything at all. Real love has learned contentment and how to rejoice in the success and blessing of others. It weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice!
4. Love does not boast - Real love is humble in nature. It is always more impressed with its own unworthiness than its own merit.
5. Love is not proud - Real love is secure. It is not inflated with its own importance. One translation says, "Love is not puffed up." That means it does not travel on air - it is not inflated.
6. Love is not rude - Intentional love is courteous and polite to all. It is gracious. It's interesting to note that in the Greek New Testament the words for grace and for charm are the same.
7. Love is not self-seeking - It takes intentionality to yield your personal rights. There are two kinds of people I've found in the world. Those who always demand their rights and those who always remember their responsibilities; those who are always thinking of what life owes them and those who never forget what they owe to life. Love yields its rights and remembers its responsibility. It is selfless' not selfish. Whenever we begin demanding our rights we are drifting away from real love.
8. Love is not easily angered - Anger is only one letter away from danger. Real love doesn't fly off the handle and lose its temper. It doesn't try to control people or circumstances but releases control to God.
9. Love keeps no record of wrongs - Real love produces peace of mind that entrusts all wrongdoing to Him who judges justly. This one characteristic of love could save many relationships today. The word translated "record" is "logizesthai" in the Greek New Testament. It is an accounting term used for entering an item in a ledger so that it will not be forgotten. One of the great arts in life is to learn what to forget. We often remember the things we should forget and forget the things we should remember. To forget the wrongs of those that hurt us is to act intentionally in forgiving them. God said when He forgives us He remembers our sins no more! Where would we be if He kept a record of our sins?
10. Love does not delight in evil - One scholar said' "It might be better to translate this that love finds no pleasure in anything that is wrong. It is not so much delight in doing the wrong thing that is meant, as the malicious pleasure which comes to most of us when we hear something derogatory about someone else." Another translation says "love thinks no evil."
11. Love rejoices with the truth - Intentional love has nothing to conceal and so is glad when the truth prevails. It's not as easy as it sounds. Many times we would rather conceal the truth. It's often the last thing we want to hear. In Ephesians 4:15, the Scriptures tell us we are to "speak the truth in love."
12. Love always protects - 1 Peter 4:8 says, "Above all' love each other deeply' because love covers over a multitude of sins." Intentional love never exposes the faults and mistakes of others. It would far rather set about quietly mending things than publicly displaying and rebuking them. Another translation says "Love bears all things." Intentional love can bear any insult, any injury, any disappointment without striking back. That describes the love of Jesus.
13. Love always trusts - This characteristic has a twofold aspect according to one scholar. First, in relation to God it means that love takes God at His word' and can take every promise which begins "Whosoever" and say, "That means me." Second' in relation to our fellow men it means that love always believes the best about other people. We often make people what we believe them to be. "Love can ennoble even the ignoble by believing the best."
14. Love always hopes - Jesus believed that no man was hopeless. No situation is hopeless. To be without hope in the bible is to be without God according to Ephesians 2:12. Wherever God is there is hope. God is love. Wherever love is there is hope. Intentional love is optimistic. It never ceases to hope.
15. Love always perseveres - The Greek verb for persevere is "hupomenein". It is generally translated to bear or to endure; but what it really describes is not the spirit which can passively bear things, but the spirit which, in bearing them' can conquer and transform them. It is the picture of the apostles in Acts 16 singing and rejoicing though imprisoned and tortured for their faith. Intentional love perseveres with praise in triumphant victory despite the circumstances.
16. Love never fails - Love never fails because God never fails. He is intentional in loving us, not because we deserve it, but because it is His nature to love. When we love despite the response of others we experience God's love.

But who can experience such love you may ask? None of us has the capacity to love like this. Take heart in the promise of Romans 5:5. "This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured out His love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God's gift to us." When we open our hearts to God, He fills us with His love by means of the Holy Spirit. Ask Him to fill your heart each day with His Spirit to enable you with God's love and begin to realize these characteristics in your relationships with others. As you do' you will experience love at last sight!

Now that you have a strong sense of what love is and is not, how have these powerful truths impacted the relationships in your life? How about your relationship with God?