Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT
One of the things I love about God’s forgiveness is that it is not just a matter of, “OK, I’ll let you off this time.” It’s much more than that. He forgives me, and that’s the whole matter closed, gone forever. He doesn’t keep a spreadsheet with all the dates, times and sins. He doesn’t keep any record of it at all.
God is love, and the passage above is a description is what he is like. I am made in his image and the passage should therefore be a description of what I am like.
To my shame it’s not.
Just as I was thinking about this, the phone rang. Someone wanting to make me aware of a new government scheme which would help me to buy something that they just happen to be selling. Did I show love by not being irritable, not being rude? Nope. It’s things like this that make me give up being nice.
Ooops, love doesn’t give up either.
I really have to get a grip. I really need to overcome and destroy the bad guy inside me and let love be my automatic reaction, not anger.