Love Is...Not Resentful

Love Is…Not Resentful

Pastor Russell Henderson

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, NIV.

Love keeps no record of wrongs.  One translations says, “it is not resentful”.  Another translations says, “it does not impute evil”.  Still another says, “it does not think evil”.  I think these alternate translations are a little more accurate to the original text.

When we say that love keeps no record of wrongs or wrongdoings, we are placing all of the focus and emphasis on the act – the behavior that was done toward us.  However, when we say that love does not impute evil, or is not resentful, we are placing the emphasis on the individual doing the wrong act.

To impute evil means that you are placing the evil, the bad behavior, or the wrong act upon that person over and over again.   In the Old Testament when a priest offered a sacrifice, he would impute the sin onto the sacrifice.  In other words, he would take all of the sin of the nation and place it upon the sacrifice.  That sacrifice then became the embodiment of the sin of the nation.  2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that the sin of all mankind was imputed upon Jesus, and He became sin for us, even though He was perfect and without sin.  Instead of the sin being imputed upon us, Jesus became the embodiment of the sin of mankind.

When you impute, or account, evil upon someone, you cannot view or remember them as anything but evil.  You cannot look at them without seeing their sin or wrongdoing.  You no longer see the individual.  You cannot remember their face or name.  All you see is the sin.  You hear their name and remember the sin.  You see their face, and the resentment wells up inside of you all over again.

Friends, Paul tells us that love sees through the sin and wrongdoing and sees into the heart of the person.  This is the love of God.  The word tells us that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16:7).  Let’s put that in today’s terms.   Man, which would represent the flesh or the mind of the flesh,  can only see and judge others from his outward appearance. The flesh can only encounter other flesh; it can only see things from a fleshly perspective.  But when man becomes filled with the Spirit and love of God, he is now more than flesh. He has been reborn and is now a Spirit being.  He can now see with eyes of the Spirit and think the thoughts of the Spirit.  As a result he is able to look beyond the fleshly surface and see into man’s heart.

Think about it this way:  in heaven there will be no anger, bitterness, hatred, or unforgiveness.  Why?  Because we are no longer fleshly beings.  We are pure spirit – clothed in the Spirit of God.  Jesus said in Matthew 6 to pray that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.  God’s desire and plan is for us to be clothed in the Spirit on earth even as we will be one day in heaven.  His desire is for us to love as we will love in heaven.  Even though we continue to contend with the flesh while we are on this earth, we can move and breathe and have our being in Him.  In other words, we now have the ability – through the Spirit – to act, think, and see the way that we will in heaven.

I honestly don’t know if it is possible to truly forget every wrong that is done to us.  But, I don’t think that Paul is saying that love must be forgetful.  I believe that what Paul is saying is that in this world people are going to treat us wrong.  They are going to hurt us.  Many times the same person will hurt us many times over.  But the love and the Spirit of God inside of us will change our perspective.  And even in the midst of hurt and pain we can impute goodness and righteousness on them.   After all, through God’s ultimate act of love, he looks beyond our sin and credits us with righteousness.