My Way
or the highway
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 13:5
Love…does not insist on its own way…
It became popular many years ago to twist the Scripture which says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” to mean that we must first focus on “self-love” and master that before we can love our neighbor as we should. Instead of helping us fulfill the law, this turns us into perpetual narcissists. A proper understanding of the text would be that it is assumed we love ourselves. And we do. Even those who have issues with self-harm or a negative view of themselves have those issues because they love themselves deeply and they want better for themselves than what they are presently experiencing. If they hated themselves, they wouldn’t be so concerned about what they view as faults or defects. But that is a topic for a longer discussion. Suffice it to say, for now, people naturally love themselves.
Because we are bent toward self-love, we are also bent toward putting our own interests first at all times. Our first thought is usually something like, “How is this going to affect me?” The company is making some organizational changes, and our first reflex is to wonder what that means about our position and role, not about Joe or Julie’s job. The church leadership is wanting to move some classrooms around to better facilitate the children’s ministry, and our first question is about how that will affect my classroom and not will that be a blessing to the children’s department.
It isn’t wrong to give thought to our own interests. It is wrong to not also consider the interests of others. Paul exhorts us in Philippians 2:4 to “look not only to [our] own interests but also the interests of others.”
That is what love does. Then, love doesn’t insist on getting its own way. Again, that doesn’t mean there aren’t times when we have to take a stand on principle and truth. We can be inflexible about those things that matter to the gospel and the honor of Christ. We can insist on the truth. But the color of the carpet or the location of the coffee bar isn’t that. And if we love others, we don’t have to insist on getting our way in those matters.
