1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
God is love and to know love then you must know God. Any other kind of love that is present where God is absent is not true love but a counterfeit.
Yesterday we talked about the patience and kindness of love. Today we look at two things that love does not do, it does not envy and it does not boast.
What is to envy?
It is a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or blessing. In simple more Christian terms, it is that bad feeling you have when someone else is blessed and you wish it was you instead.
Have we all been there? Ohh yes. You have prayed for an issue and it seems like God answers but He sent the blessing to the wrong address. Envy has some pride in it because in your heart of hearts you think you are more deserving than the other person. That is not a trait of love because it is not self-seeking.
Proverbs 14:30;
“A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.”
Boasting also has pride walking alongside it because it lifts itself showing off to be better than the rest. To boast is to talk with excessive pride and self-satisfaction about one’s achievements, possessions, or abilities. The Bible says that if we are to boast in anything we should boast in Christ because all we are is through Him and apart from Him we can do nothing.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 NIV
This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord , who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord .
True love is not boastful and proud but rather it displays humility because it is not self-seeking. No wonder the Bible says that God resists the proud but lifts the humble
Take out
True love is not all talk but action and it cannot be hidden. Pride envy and boasting are nowhere near the presence of true love.
Remember
Love always perseveres love never fails.
