God’s Love Is Humble, Not Selfish by Pastor Joseph Cortes In 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, Paul gives us the character of God’s love. He writes, “Charity [or love] suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth.” That is not the kind of love the world usually talks about. That is not sentimental emotion. That is not selfish desire. That is not cheap kindness that refuses to tell the truth. God’s love is patient. It is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not puffed up. It does not seek its own. It is not easily provoked. It rejoices in truth. It endures. God’s love is not puffed up. God’s love is humble. That alone exposes much of what people call love today. Whether you visit a church or talk to people in the streets, you will find many people who say they are walking in love, but their love does not resemble 1 Corinthians 13. Their love is rude. Their love is selfish. Their love is easily angered. Their love keeps records of wrongs. Their love envies, boasts, and believes the worst about others. I have seen plenty of this in the Christian world. It is not God’s love. It is a cheap imitation. This is one reason so many relationships and marriages fail. I do not usually give much marriage advice, but this needs to be said. You cannot get married to someone hoping they will complete you and make your life perfect. That sounds romantic, but it is not reality. Marriage is not about getting. Let me say that again: marriage is not about getting. It is not even really about some 50/50 arrangement like the world talks about. Marriage is about giving. If you want a marriage that lasts, find someone you can pour your life into and someone who will pour their life into you. See who can out-give and out-love the other. That is far closer to God’s kind of love.

We’ve had discussions here about the Catholic Church and whether or not Catholics are saved. I posted an article about communion on the local Nextdoor app. The Catholic chimed in about it. He basically said that you have to go through communion because their sins that you can’t get forgiven through grace. This means that many Catholics are relying upon the Eucharist to save their souls from going to hell. We can’t rely on any type of ritual. Are only saving graces through Christ. Because they believe ritual is necessary to save them. They’re not saved.

Love Warns Because Danger Is Real by Pastor Joseph Cortes Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Then He said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. But again, we must let God define love. Loving your neighbor does not mean affirming everything your neighbor does. Loving your neighbor does not mean staying silent while your neighbor walks toward destruction. Loving your neighbor means caring enough about their soul to tell them the truth. Leviticus 19:17-18 says, “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him,” and then it says, “love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.” That is powerful. God connects love with warning. He does not say love means silence. He says if you love your neighbor, you will not let sin destroy him without warning him. Now that does not mean we beat people over the head with the Bible. There are plenty of religious people who have used God’s Word like a club, and that is not what I am talking about. But it does mean love hates what evil does to people so much that it sets aside comfort to warn them. This is where the picture of the flares comes in. Imagine driving down a dark highway at night, and there has been an accident ahead. You cannot see the danger yet, but someone is standing there with flares, waving them, trying to get your attention. Warning. Warning. Warning. Stop. Slow down. Danger ahead. That person is not being hateful. He is not trying to ruin your night. He is trying to save your life. That is what believers are called to do in this world. We are called to stand with the flares of truth and warn people about what is ahead if they remain on the path they are on. In Matthew 5, Jesus said His people are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. But some Christians are stuck in the salt shaker. They have truth, but they are not touching anything. They have light, but they keep it hidden. They do not want to be thought of as weird, extreme, judgmental, or out of control. But what good is salt if it never gets poured out? What good is light if it never shines in darkness? We have to connect with people. We have to love people. We have to warn people. We may not love what they are doing, but we love them enough to tell them about the consequences of staying on that road.

We spent weeks preparing. The moment was almost here. The bishop was coming! Yee! Haw! The Bishop is coming. Service began like normal. The priest called for the doors to be shut. “The doors! The doors!” they cried, as though Roman soldiers were still outside waiting to kill us for practicing communion. Then he entered. The song began. I do not remember the words, but I remember the sight. The robe was splendid. The hat was enormous. The whole room shifted around him. If you or I walked in wearing that, people would think we had lost our minds. But because it was religious, everyone treated it as holy. He sat in his chair. Then the children started getting a little noisy. Their parents began to correct them. The bishop scolded the parents. “Let them play,” he said. “Let them have fun. This is the house of the Lord. Suffer the little children unto me.” It sounded beautiful. It sounded humble. It sounded holy. Then he began telling his story. When he was a child, his parents left him at the steps of the church. They dedicated him to the church. He was raised by the church. He never watched television. He never listened to the radio. His life was separated from the ordinary things of the world. People heard that and probably thought, How humble. How holy. How beautiful. But I heard something different. I heard a story that raised serious questions. Are we supposed to believe it is holy for parents to leave their child at the church and let someone else raise him? Is abandoning responsibility now a spiritual virtue? Were they being righteous, or were they avoiding the weight God had placed on them as parents? And here was the man who was supposed to lead us. A man who had barely lived in the world was now positioned to speak to people who were fighting real battles in it. How does someone address real-world problems when he has been kept from the real world? How does someone understand the pressures of ordinary believers when his whole life has been shaped inside religious walls?