“Love does not rejoice at wrong-doing but rejoices with the truth.”
1 Corinthians 13:6
Most people would like to live a life of joy. If given the choice, most people would choose joy over sorrow, or depression, or misery, or melancholy. God’s love shows us how to find that joy in our life, and Paul tells us how. Love does not find joy in wrong-doing (unrighteousness) but in truth. It seems so simple, as if we should already know this. But we somehow get love mixed up, twisted and distorted with wrong-doing all the time. Often, we choose actions that are categorized as wrong or evil or sinful in God’s eyes and call them “love”. Take, for example, lying. How many lies have been told in the name of love? How many adulterous affairs have happened in the name of love? How much theft has transpired for the sake of love? There certainly have been a wealth of novels and plays written on these premises alone. But we could also throw in selfish control and manipulation. Actions inspired by envy and jealousy and rage. We have coined the term “crimes of passion” – crimes fueled by unbridled emotion. Sometimes we resort to sinful behavior and justify it in the name of love. At this point, we are way off base. Not only is it not love, but it will never bring joy.
Instead, Paul tells us that true love, God’s kind of love, “leans toward and delights” in truth. Not just factual information, but in sincerity, trustworthiness (like loyalty) a moral rightness, a reality that exists and persists in the universe, never changing. What Paul is telling us is that love lines up with God who is completely true, completely right, completely good. Only when we align ourselves with God’s truth will we find the joy we are looking for – within ourselves and with others.
Of course, Jesus told us this, himself. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) He went on to say, as we abide in him – lean in toward him, delight in him – we would know love like he has with the Father and that our joy would be full (John 15:9-11). So, when we want to love another, we must love the way Christ loves us, in truth, honestly, sincerely, righteously. All our actions need to align with the righteousness of Jesus, his perfect goodness, purity, and faithfulness.
That’s a hard task. Of course we sin, and God has kindly made a propitiation for us – his Son Jesus (1 John 2:1-2). Therefore, as Christians, we have confidence that he manifests his righteousness in us. He shows us the way and becomes the true way in us. “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning” (1 John 3:9), and certainly, one does not call it love. The Bible is clear from start to finish that unrighteousness (or wrong-doing, or sinning) is the antithesis of God and his love. He can have no part in it, nor should we. We cannot knowingly sin in a relationship and still expect God to be in the equation. In fact, the intentional, willful, perverse delight in doing wrong sets us against God.
Wherever wrong-doing persists, there will be no love, nor joy. Wherever right and true actions are upheld and honored, so God will be too. There, we will find the love and joy for which we are made.
Blessed Jesus,
I praise you because you are the truth of my life.
Everything that is good and right and pure about me comes from you.
I praise you because you rejoice when I lean in a little closer to you.
Let me understand truth, not as commands and hard sayings,
but as a means to enter your presence.
You are my righteousness.
You make me more than I naturally am. You raise me up to a higher standard.
Help me love others this way,
By example, with tenderness, with joy.
Yes, please Lord, bring me into your joy.
Amen.
This is an excerpt from my new Bible Study called LOVE IS. If you would like to learn more, or participate independently online, click here: https://elizabethheadblack.com/love-is-study/.