Don't Ever Say "I Love You..."

Do not tell someone you love them if you are impatient with them and do not demonstrate gentleness and thoughtfulness towards them, for true biblical love is longsuffering and kind.

Don’t claim you love someone if your actions reveal jealousy or boastfulness because real love does not envy and is not conceited in any way.

Don’t even utter the words “I love you” to another person if your heart is full of pride and you’re rude and offensive to them.  Genuine love demonstrates the humility of Christ and is not insulting to others whatsoever.

Don’t declare your love for another person if you are selfish and insist on having your own way.  Authentic love is never self-centered, self-seeking or egotistically focused.

Do not say you love someone other than yourself if you are irritable or resentful.  The perfect example of love modeled by God in His Word is in no way angry, bitter or easily offended.

Don’t proclaim love for another human being if you are unforgiving and rejoice at the wrongs others have done.  Biblical love does not delight in the failures of others and keeps no record of past sin.

In other words, we cannot truly say “I love you” to our spouse, our children, our family, or our friends if any of the above characteristics are the least bit evident in our attitudes, conversation or actions.  When impatience, rudeness, jealousy, pride, irritability, unforgiveness, and bitterness are detected in our lives, it simply mirrors the condition of our inner heart for all those around us to see, even if we are blinded to it.  This is a dangerous state of heart and mind and must be taken care of right away before it causes more destruction. 

When my husband and I were married 24 years ago this month, we received many very nice wedding gifts.  Picnic baskets seemed to be an extremely popular gift back then because I believe we received six or seven of them.  Out of all of the beautiful presents our loved ones bestowed upon us as we began our new life together, a gift that has remained one of our favorites is a beautiful cross stitch of I Corinthians 13.  As a newly married couple, my husband and I took pleasure in hanging it directly above our couch to serve as a great reminder to us of what “genuine” love looks like.   I distinctly recall reading through this passage of Scripture many times as it hung on our wall during the years I was feeding our babies late at night.  Those verses were especially convicting to me as I tried to ignore them during the times when my husband I were engaged in strong disagreement for the first several years of marriage.  I remember thinking to myself, ‘How in the world would anyone ever be able to live up to those Scripture verses about love!’  I thought it would be impossible to possess that kind of amazing love for someone, unless of course you were married to the ‘perfect’ person.  Thankfully I finally figured out that the ‘perfect’ spouse doesn’t exist.

As you can clearly see, I had the wrong perspective!  I was selfish and wanted my own way many times.  I was prideful and easily offended.  I was jealous and impatient with the fact that my husband didn’t totally understand everything about me and meet my every need.  I was an unforgiving and bitter person.  To be totally transparent with you, I used to keep a special notebook of ALL of the hurtful things my husband said or did to me so I wouldn’t forget them. What’s even MORE embarrassing is that I kept one for my sister too because I thought she was way too forgiving!  Can anyone else identify with me on this?  I was completely blinded to my own sin and pride so that I could spend all of my time concentrating fully on my husband’s sin.  Okay, by now you are realizing how messed up I really was!  I had absolutely NO concept of TRUE biblical love whatsoever. 

If I had continued to remain prideful and refused to humble myself before God, I believe that my marriage would not have survived for many more years!  My self-seeking bitter heart would have eventually destroyed every relationship in my life if left alone to fester and further poison my heart.   Praise God for the Holy Spirit’s conviction of my sin through the preaching of His Word and the healing restoration that our confession of sin brings to our soul.  I John 1:9 promises, “If we confess our sins, He is FAITHFUL to FORGIVE us our sins and to CLEANSE us from ALL unrighteousness.”   God’s forgiveness made possible only through Jesus’ blood purifies us from absolutely EVERYTHING we’ve done wrong, but it can only begin with bowing in humility on our part.

I now possess a deeper understanding of how you can love someone else with this biblical kind of love.  If God can transform my ugly heart by allowing me to better grasp the love of Christ and how to demonstrate His love to other people, then He can change anyone!  Humility is the key to possessing this authentic biblical love described for us in the “love” chapter.  We can continue to claim to love our spouse, our children, our friends and our family members but if our definition of love doesn’t match up with God’s definition, then we don’t truly love anyone other than ourselves.

I Corinthians 13: 4-13 

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;^{[a] 6} it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The next time you think about expressing your love to someone else by saying “I love you”, I challenge you to first compare your attitudes, actions and the words you choose to speak with God’s version of love demonstrated clearly in First Corinthians 13.  We can claim to be loving people who truly care about others, but the proof of our love will be evident to everyone around us. God also tells us at the beginning of I Corinthians 13 that we can have ALL knowledge and possess ALL faith, we can give ALL of our possessions to feed the poor and even become a martyr for Christ, BUT if we do not possess authentic love for others, we are absolutely NOTHING! 

How sad that many of us are personally missing the mark when it comes to showing biblical love! We are wasting precious time that passes way too quickly by remaining self absorbed, self centered, and self seeking. How will we ever influence anyone for Christ if the only love we demonstrate to others is the love we have for ourselves?  How about you, would others say the love you proclaim for them matches up with God’s definition of biblical love?  If not, now is the time for change!