1 Corinthians 13:4

Monday 2/13/12

1 Corinthians 13:4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

Interpretation:

     Love does not parade itself. I’d like to think I love the Lord, but how many times do I do something or think a thought that promotes myself. Self-promotion is a very dangerous area in a Christian’s life. A few different things can happen when we promote ourselves or our flesh instead of Jesus. First, we can get puffed up, get prideful, and then as Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.” Second, we are doomed to eventually fail in the flesh and probably even get depressed since we had so much confidence in the flesh to begin with. Third, as we focus on ourselves, we start walking in the flesh instead of the spirit. Galatians 5:22-23 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” If we forsake the Spirit to parade ourselves and walk in our flesh, these are all the good fruits we will be forfeiting.

     Parading yourself is not just outward actions that are visible by others. It can be as simple as thinking you have something good in your flesh. You can parade yourself by being proud of something you did and giving yourself the credit instead of God. God wants us to love Him and not parade ourselves not because He’s an egocentric God, but because He knows that when we focus on ourselves, disastrous consequences are inevitable.

 Application:

     I will ask God to help me realize throughout the day whenever I start to focus on myself that I might turn my focus back on meditating on God’s goodness and loving Him.