Remember the "Is Nots"

At nearly every wedding, you'll undoubtedly hear the "Love Chapter" (from 1 Corinthians 13) read at some point during the ceremony. Everyone can remember the beginning of it---"Love is patient, love is kind.."---but then the rest of it sort of fades into oblivion. And that's a shame because the rest of this passage tells us a lot about love and more importantly, what love is not.

As we move on through verses 4 through 7, notice all of the things that love is not. Love is not jealous. Love is not proud. Love is not rude. Love is not self-seeking. Love is not easily angered. Love does not keep record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil. Could it be that so many marriages struggle and even fail because we've forgotten the "Is Nots"? How much better would our marriages be if we remembered these words from our wedding day? How great would a marriage be that rejoiced in our wife's well-being, that demonstrated humility, that sought to meet her needs first, that didn't keep score or bring up mistakes from the past and that continually sought the righteousness of God?

The first three verses of the love chapter remind us that we are nothing without love and the chapter ends by reminding us that of faith, hope and love--the greatest is love. As servant leaders in our homes, if we make it a priority to focus on and remember the "Is Nots", then we can truly experience love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails (v.6-7).