Love Is … Patient

by Chris Simmons

Truth be told, the world today and the society we live in doesn’t have a clue what true love is. The confusion can be seen in the following entry in Wikipedia, “Love is a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure.” Ask a thousand people to define love and you’ll get a thousand different answers. Would it not make more sense to allow the God who created the world and all things in it to teach us what love really is? In fact “God is love” (I John 4:16) and it is to Him and His revealed will that we should turn to understand what love is.

The Greeks had several different words used to express love but it is only one of them that is predominantly used to convey God’s definition of love to us. That word is agape and it is a love that seeks the welfare or best interest of the one we choose to direct our love towards. It’s expressed when we do what is needed by the one whom we are loving. It’s a love that must be taught and learned and isn’t something that we simply fall into our out of. It’s a love of the will and not the heart that is to be extended, not only to those who we have an affinity for, but even for our enemies (Luke 6:27-32). It’s a love that is more important than any other human quality towards God and our neighbor (Matthew 22:37-39; I Corinthians 13:1-3) and will determine our eternal destiny (I John 4:7-21).

What then is this agape love that we are to choose to learn and choose to exhibit towards God and man? God gives us a very clear understanding of this love in I Corinthians 13:4-7 and we would do well to not just read these words but to truly understand what they require of us and then actually implement them or do them as John wrote of the need to “not love with word or tongue, but in deed and truth” (I John 4:18).

I Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Love Is Patient

Paul begins by identifying patience as one of the critical components of love. The word come to us from the Greek word makrothumeo which Thayer defines as “to be patient in bearing the offences and injuries of others; to be mild and slow in avenging; to be long-suffering, slow to anger and slow to punish.” It means to be the opposite of short-tempered. There’s another Greek word that is sometimes translated “patience” in the New Testament scriptures that actually comes from a different Greek word. That other word is hupomeno which means constancy, endurance, and a sustaining spirit in the face of trials and tribulations. Zodhiates in his Lexical Aids To The New Testament, explains the difference between these two words in the following manner. “(Makrothumia) is a long-holding of the mind before it gives room to action or passion. It is patience in respect to persons while hupomone, endurance, is patience toward things or circumstances.”

This characteristic of love is most challenging because it is to be exercised when we’ve been wronged or when people simply aren’t treating us the way we want or ought to be treated. There are two environments that we find ourselves most challenged by this aspect of love.

The first would be in the home. Satan persistently tempts husbands and wives as well as parents and children to react with “bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander” (Ephesians 4:31-32) rather than putting them away and exercising patience. We are certainly called upon to exercise our love by showing patience to strangers and “all men” (I Thessalonians 5:14) but how much more so are we called upon to exercise patience towards those in our families? Paul calls upon husbands to “love your wives, and do not be embittered against them” (Colossians 3:19) while urging women to “love their husbands, to love their children” (Titus 2:4). Should not patience begin at home?

Secondly, we are tempted to withhold our patience to the fellow members of the body of Christ. Paul wrote in Colossians 3:12-14, “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Our brethren deserve our patience as a fruit of our love because we have all benefited from the patience of God and His Son Jesus Christ. We read in II Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Patience is not the acceptance of sin, but rather the outgrowth of love that desires to give the other the time and the compassion to make things right – as God has done for us.

Aren’t you thankful for the patience of God and His willingness to give you the time to repent, grow, and make things right with Him? If we have been so blessed by God, does not our love compel us to do the same for our family, our brethren, and all men? Jesus, in a parable in Matthew 18:22-35, rebuked and condemned the man who sought the patience of the King (verse 26), who after receiving his patience and forgiveness was unwilling to extend the same to his fellow debtor (verse 29). In His love, Jesus has “demonstrated His perfect patience” (I Timothy 1:16) towards each one of us just as he did for the apostle Paul. It is a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) that must be born in our lives if we hope to “inherit the promises” (Hebrews 6:12).