When God saves a sinner, the Spirit of God takes up residence in the soul of that NOW saved sinner. Along with the Spirit of God, comes this special “Love that is of God”. 1 John 4:7- 21, (New Memory Passage, 7-8) 1 Corinthians 13 the Word of God shows us what “agape love” looks like! FIRST, as we learned this morning, it is “longsuffering and kind”. The 4th and 5th fruit of the Spirit. Longsuffering and Kindness are yokefellows, (Co-Laboring) spiritual graces from the Spirit of God that should be in the heart of every believer. Every born-again child of God ought to be adorned with these attributes of Charity or Love. Charity envieth not! We began this morning with what Love IS; Charity IS Longsuffering and Charity IS Kind. But NOW Paul teaches us in the next (8) characteristics, what Charity or Love IS NOT! The first of what Charity or Love is NOT, it is NOT ENVIOUS! There were no doubt problems with envy in the Church at Corinth! Another word for envy is jealousy! “Envy” also means to boil or burn angrily towards another, to the point that you hate them. Search your heart here child of God; what is your heart reaction toward a brother or sister in Christ who is prospering in the Lord? Are you glad for them, do you enter into their joy and rejoice with them in their rejoicing? Or do you get envious and jealous of them? If envy is NOT mortified in our spirits, it will ruin our testimonies and destroy our souls! How about those that are prospering in the world who are NOT Christians? Do you become envious and jealous of what the wicked possess of this world? To the point that you boil with anger toward them and hate them. If you might be thinking that Christians do not struggle with envy and sinful jealousy, think again! Psalm 73:1-17, Proverbs 24:1. Charity or Agape Love IS NOT envious or jealous against its neighbor: Pontius Pilate was perceptive enough to realize that the Lord Jesus Christ was an innocent man, and the only reason that the scribes and Pharisees delivered Him up to the killed was because they envied Him, which led to their hatred of Him! There are so many examples and so much instruction in the Holy Scriptures to warn us about this malignancy, this sin and spiritual leprosy that will ruin the soul everyone who is terminally infected by it. Oh, look out for it in YOUR heart and mind beloved; if you detect it in its smallest form, KILL IT with violence! Genesis 30:12-16, 27, 37:3-11, 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, 2 Corinthians 12:20, Titus 3:3, Proverbs 27:4, Matthew 27:18 This is what Charity or Love IS NOT; if God’s love is IN YOU, you will NOT be full of envy and jealousy toward others! Look at our dear brother Moses; I love this passage; it tells you what type of man he was; oh, that we would ALL, as children of God, have his spirit in us! Numbers 11:24-29 Romans 13:13: “Let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lust thereof” Charity Envieth NOT! Who are you envying tonight?
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