Love Does Not Delight in Evil

1 Corinthians 13:6  “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”

The Message puts it: Love “doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything.”

Love does not delight in evil. How to apply this? When someone sins or fails, when someone is humiliated by their own wrong doing – am I amused or pleased? Am I judgmental? Or do I realize that I sin and fail, and do or say stupid or even wrong things?

Delighting in evil — don’t we all do it? Someone else’s downfall is an occasion for juicy gossip. Someone we know divorces, or loses their job or leaves their church, or goes to jail.  We gleefully ask for the details so we can pray for them. Or do we ask so we can gloat over the fact that we would never do what they did.

We need to remember we are all sinners and all sin is equal.  

Love doesn’t rejoice in wrong doing. Instead, love rejoices in the truth—in the flowering of the truth. In other words, we need to assume the best about others, especially those whose sins (or problems) are most obvious. We need to see others from God’s point of view and from their own perspective – and believe in the good in them. We can expect a blade of truth to grow and blossom.

Lord, this is a difficult verse. Help us ponder your meaning about this as it applies to us.

Blessings, Dottie