Perfect Love

Practical features of the expression of God’s love: 1. Love is not defined by the act, but by the character of God within the act. 2. Love precludes hypocrisy and play-acting. 3. Love is unselfish; not based on self-need or want. 4. Love is not conditioned on reciprocity or calculation of repayment. 5. Love doesn’t care who gets the credit. 6. Love is active; not merely passive or theoretical; love doesn’t loiter. 7. Love believes, trusts and expects God to overcome all things. 8. Love is directed toward people; not things, ideas, doctrines, principles. 9. Love of neighbor desires them to have everything you have, and more. 10. Love precludes resentment, covetousness, and judging another. 11. Love seeks to commend, not condemn. 12. Love is not conditioned on the lovability or action of the recipient. 13. Love is not fickle; it is unchanging and limitless. 14. Love precludes despair at the loss or absence of the person loved. 15. Love precludes favoritism and aversion. 16. Love does not engage in comparison. 17. Love is not possessive, seeking to own or control another person. 18. Love does not find its identity or life in the one loved. 19. Love is the antidote to fear and paranoia – I Jn. 4:18. 20. Love seeks the highest good of the other, with no thought of benefit to oneself. 21. Love involves self-denial, self-renunciation, personal sacrifice, humility. 22. Love is willing to suffer slights, hurts, abuse. 23. Love builds others up, nurtures, edifies; it is constructive, not destructive. 24. Love seeks to avoid grieving or offending another – Rom. 13:10; 14:15. 25. Love of one’s enemy removes his relation of power – Matt. 5:40. 26. Love precludes partiality, preference, distinction, exclusivism; it is universal and equal. 27. Love does not take the situation into one's hand to resolve the problem. 28. Love does not preclude confrontation, opposition and discipline – Heb. 12:6; it is not always capitulatory or soft (“tough love”); cf. Matt. 10:34; Lk. 12:49. 29. Love cannot be coerced or obliged by law or moral principle and program. 30. Love is not retaliatory – Rom. 12:17; it turns the other cheek – Matt. 5:39. 31. Love does not dictate performance standards or expectations to others. 32. Love prompts one to take the initiative to be the first to act – Matt. 7:12. 33. Love dissolves the emotional blocks which keep us from sensitivity to others. 34. Love does not demand its personal rights. 35. Love excludes suspicion and mistrust. 36. Love allows one to be free to be man as God intended man to be.