The Love Test - Part 1

The trials of life will test God’s love in you.

· These are trying times.

· Violence, lawlessness, sickness and censorship is on the rise while the economy, employment and church attendance is down.

· A global pandemic has now reached the 1-year mark – and counting.

· Religious freedoms are under escalated attacks to threaten, harass, intimidate and even penalize believers in who they can hire for their own faith-based business, how they can worship in their own church, what ministers and believers can say and who ministers would try to be forced to marry against their deeply held convictions based upon the Word of God. The church has gone from one battle to multiple battles. Some of our representatives that are supposed to be defending our constitutional rights are actually hurting us.

· Times like these can be testy. They can test our faith, our patience and our love.

· Temperament – melancholy‘s have harder time letting things go and not keeping score so they have to work extra hard. Lean on God‘s grace extra hard.

God s Love

· God is love – ALWAYS. 1 John 4:8

· God’s love never changes, regardless if times are good or bad.

God’s love is HOT

· God love his HOT – Always!

· God is not fickle and moody – His love for mankind is always 100%.

· He can never love mankind any less or love us anymore, regardless of our salvation or actions.

· God loves the saint. God loves the center.

· God loves them both the same.

God’s Love in in YOU

· We need to remember that God’s love is in the heart of every believer.

· The child of God is to love the same as our Father God. But do we? Many indicators all around us point that we do not, such as the way we treat each other as well as the church’s reputation for how she interacts with the world.

· The Bible says that in the last days, sin will abound and the love of many (people) will grow cold. What sin would cause peoples love to grow cold? Would it be theft? Perhaps it is just lawlessness in general. It frustrates people from trying. So they become irritable as they suffer from lack of progress and even digression.

The apostle Paul wrote a letter to Corinth, probably the most spiritually gifted church of the day. In chapter 13, he tells them that all their gifts from God are diminished severely by how they treat others.

Most of the church’s problems were with each other, but the many of the same principles apply to the church’s relationship to the world, too!

Are you patient? (1 Cor 13:4)

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NLT)

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

AMP - love endures with patience and serenity

Patience (makrothymia) is the capacity to be wronged and not retaliate.

The Corinthian church had many members who had been wronged (e.g., in lawsuits [1 Cor. 6:8] and the poor at communal meals [11:21–22]). The response of love to these wrongs would be a display of kindness and goodness.[1]

G3114 – to not lose heart

· 1a to persevere patiently and bravely in enduring misfortunes and troubles.

· 1b to be patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others.

· 1b1 to be mild and slow in avenging.

· 1b2 to be longsuffering, slow to anger, slow to punish.[2]

It will take God’s love in the form of patience to keep praying even when things seem to be going backwards – to keep preaching when fewer seem to be listening and more want you to be quiet. It will take patience and perseverance to keep standing up for Biblical values.

Hagin –

It’s always flesh that is boastful, haughty, conceited, arrogant, inflated with pride, rude, and unmannerly.

And by an act of your own will, you can decide not to give in to these fleshly temptations. You can decide rather to walk in love — to walk in the Spirit.

The battle is there between your human spirit and your flesh. But the Bible says, “. . . Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).

Decide to allow your spirit to dominate. When the temptation comes, begin to speak the Word of God. Begin to say, “I am born of love. I will allow the love of God within me to dominate this situation.”

And the love of God will rise up big within you!

Love test Question #1 – Are you patient?

Are you rude, or demand your own way? (1 Cor 13:5a)

· Love does not demand its own way

Demand its own way

Too many people would rather declare, “Well, I know what’s mine, though. I’ve got my say-so, and I’m going to have it. I’ve got my rights, and I’m going to have them.” And they insist on having their own way, no matter how much their actions may hurt someone else.

I was only twenty years old and unmarried when I pastored my second church, and I rented a room from a couple in the church. The man of the house knew the Bible, and he had a marvelous experience with God. But he was the type of person who said, “I’ve got my say-so, and I’m going to have it. I’m a member of that church just as much as anyone else, and I’ve got my say-so.” He had his say-so all right, and so did some of the others, until they wrecked the church.

Rude = behave disgracefully, indecently

· Today’s society seems to be more vindictive and mean.

· They are sarcastic, hostile and openly combative.

· Civility seems to be a thing of the past.

· Correction is out of bounds

· Many disagreements become personal.

Love test Question # 2 – Are you rude? Do you demand your own way?

· Even in a sweet way = manipulation

Are you irritable? (1 Cor 13:5b)

· G3947 – easily provoked, spur on, make angry, stir

Love test Question #3 – Are you irritable? How short has your fuse been?

Are you resentful? (1 Cor 13:5c)

· meditate on, judge, deliberate

· G3049 – calculate, to reckon inward, judge, to infer

Love keeps no record of being wronged

People who are not easily angered usually do not start lawsuits (as in 6:1–11). Love does not record wrongs, though there was ample opportunity for doing so in Corinth (e.g., 6:8; 7:5; 8:11).[3] (the church at Corinth was cheating and defrauding even their very own!)

“. . . Love . . . takes no account of the evil done to it . . . .”

This has to be the God-kind of love, because we were enemies of God, and God didn’t take account of the evil we had done to Him. He sent Jesus to redeem us. He loved us while we were yet sinners.

Here is the love thermometer — the love gauge! It’s very easy to find out whether or not you’re walking in love. When you begin to take account of the evil done to you, you’re not walking in love. As long as you walk in God and stay full of the Holy Spirit, you won’t take account of the evil done to you.

Through the years when unjust things have happened to me, people have told me, “I wouldn’t take that. I wouldn’t put up with that — not me!” But I just kept my mouth shut and never said a word, smiled, and stayed happy.

Hagin –

“. . . Love . . . pays no attention to a suffered wrong . . . .” We might just as well admit it — there aren’t too many people walking in God’s love, even though they have it! No, they’re walking in natural human love, and they surely pay attention to a suffered wrong! They get huffy about it. A husband and wife, both Christians, will become angry and won’t speak to each other for a week because of some wrong that one of them suffered.

Can’t you see how it would straighten things out in the home, the church, and the nation for people to become children of God, get the love of God in them, and then live in the family of God as children of God?

I suggest you walk in love, too, toward those who treat you in an evil manner. If you walk in love regardless of suffered wrongs, you’ll come out on top in the long run!

However, some people will regard your attitude as a weakness. Even ministers have told me, “There must be a weakness in your character; you never take up for yourself.” No, it’s a strength! Love never fails.

I simply refuse to hold any resentment in my heart against anyone.

Love test Question #4 – Are you resentful?

Do you meditate and rehash things said and done to you, about you or against you?

How do you treat those closest to you? Spouses bickering? children belittled?

Do you rejoice when other people fail? (1 Cor 13:6)

1 Corinthians 13:6 (NLT)

6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

G93 – a deed violating law and justice

People think it’s funny –

· Most popular videos are people falling, accidents, personal injury and having epic fails.

· Or when a politician they did not vote for makes mistakes.

· Or when some kind of scandal breaks out and people are exposed publicly.

Rejoice with God’s justice – not ours!

· Don’t confuse or try to impose your view of justice on God!

· Love does not rejoice at injustice – we should not be happy when someone fails, rather we should pray for them.

· We should pray for Things to be exposed, for the positive affect and result of justice

· For the sake of justice

· Not that people’s lives be destroyed, but that things get better

· That we learn from it and move forward.

Love test Question #5 – Do you secretly rejoice when other people fail?

How to Pass the Love Test

· Allow your spirit to dominate

· Be quick to forgive

Personal Inventory –

· Did you pass the “Love Test”?

· In what areas do you need to improve?

Closing – Let’s support each other in God’s love

[1] Lowery, D. K. (1985). 1 Corinthians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 535). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

[2] Strong, J. (1995). Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon. Woodside Bible Fellowship.

[3] Lowery, D. K. (1985). 1 Corinthians. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 535). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.