Love is not rude, is not selfish, and does not get upset with others. Love does not count up wrongs that have been done.  1 Corinthians 13:5, NCV

It's interesting to me how the first two characteristics of love are written positively (love is patient, love is kind) and then are contrasted with the last six, which describe what love is not.  I wonder why Paul wrote them this way.  One thought I had is that contrasting the characteristics highlights them a bit more.  

Saying what love is not inspires us to explore exactly what those words mean.  So let's look at today's descriptions.   First, love is not rude.  We live in a rude age - insults pass as humor, putdowns disguise feelings, and intimacy is distracted by teasing. 

Some families are built in this way.  The only way they can show "love" is by insulting each other.  But this is not love, this is familiarity.  True love rises above the tendency to vault ourselves up while holding others down.  That is what rudeness is.

One of the antonyms for rude is kind.  Does that sound familiar?  Paul is reiterating again that love is characterized, hallmarked even, by our behavior.  When we hide our love with teasing or insults, we are either very faulty in our love behavior or we don't know how to really love.

Love means that we set aside our tendencies, our pasts, our family behavior, to ride above our fears and love freely.  When we have God's love, Christ's love running through us, we don't have to be afraid.  We can love, and love, and love.

Once again, we cannot love without rudeness without God's love coursing through our veins.  However, with God, we can love the most unlovable, the most vulnerable, the most irritating.  We can love the rudest people with love that rises above rudeness.  We can love them - truly love them - with kindness and joy.

There's so much to this verse, I'm just going to take a few days to cover it!  Tomorrow:  love is not selfish.