Love Does Not Worship Self

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

LOVE DOES NOT WORSHIP SELF

1 Cor 13:4-7

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.

NIV

Alright, we have come to this love that is not self-seeking. First, we should note the word 'seek' is also used as when we would seek God and has been used in the sense of to seek Him to worship. We could make this jump and use this seeking-self as like self-worship. However, the idea is still the same in that we would be wanting what we want when we want it, before giving any attention to what someone else wants or needs. This may be one of the most difficult tracts of love to overcome as we spend so much time, actually, all our time, with ourselves and have usually, if not always, been concerned about how our self is. We eat when we are hungry, we only eat what we like, and we sleep when we are tired, and do pretty much whatever we like, going, or not going somewhere based on our own desires. So then when do we yield all that for the sake of another? It would seem it is when we love them. Of course, there are those who the Spirit manifests his gift of helps through and that is what they do, usually helping others all when help needed. But this love also requires that we put self aside, at times, when another has a need and cannot help, or meet their own need. Of course, this applies most generally in a marriage when we most likely defer to our spouse. However, just because we love, does that mean we cannot ever have our own needs and desires and spend time on them? If we were always not seeking self, then it would seem self would suffer, and then what about others who are supposed to love us and not seek their self, but defer to our needs. How does that work? If all of us are always giving up self to meet the needs of another, then this would kind of be like a stalemate. Then what about those who just don’t care about meeting our needs, putting us ahead of them and they are just selfish people, always wanting more and more from us. Oh, this is a sticky-wicked situation, because that should not matter if we love. There are going to be some who would take advantage of our love, but again, we are simply supposed to love, and therefore we should not always be about seeking or worshipping self.