Love Doesn’t Need to Be Fixed

1 Corinthians 13: 1 – 8, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…”

Whether God has used Jim Spivey to spur my conversations with Him, or whether He has used Jim to confirm my conversation with Him I do not know. But what I do know is that love does not need to be fixed.

In his May 20, 2012 Blog Jim quotes Bob Goff from Love Does. Bob wrote, “I used to want to fix people, but now I just want to be with them.”

With this as fodder Jim writes, “There is a clear distinction showing up these days between Jim (my self-grown personality) showing off / spewing his knowledge and wisdom for the benefit and enlargement mostly of Jim, and Jesus expressing himself clearly and simply through me for the benefit of others and the enlargement of Jesus and His kingdom… When Jim is doing his thing, the tone is serious and weighty, and I’m attached to the outcome in some unconscious way. When Jesus is doing God’s thing, he is lighthearted and detached, trusting Him completely with both the process and the outcome…”

For those that don’t know Jim Spivey, he is a life, business, love, death, coach. He spends all day, nearly every day listening to people and their problems all the while trying to be a reflection of Christ. When he tries to fix is when he falls out of love.

Do you see this in context with the scripture above? Ministry on terms of tongues, prophecy (advice / speaking for God), and miracles are not love. Quoting scripture is not in and of itself love and without the seasoning of love is worthless. Even giving and martyrdom are not love.

Love is patient. Love is kind. (Note that love is not defined as kindness.) Love rejoices in truth. Love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. Everything else in the scripture is what love is not.

Is love an emotion? No

Is love an outcome? No

Is love advice? No

Is love giving? No

Is love Christ? Yes

In fact Love is more noun than verb. “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) And to walk in love is to have God, His Spirit, His Son, His kingdom at work inside you.

Jim said that he knows when it is about Jim and not God – when he is “attached to the outcome in some unconscious (or conscious) way.” Love is not an outcome. And love does not seek an outcome as it does not seek its own. And frankly outside of salvation there is not a one of us who can accurately say what God’s outcome is for anyone person today save for ourselves… maybe.

Love does not need to be fixed. We do not need to be fixed. We simply have to work to be aware of the spirit of God inside us. Then in that awareness of Him, to the exclusion of everything that is not Him we walk in love.

I would be a fool to say I was there, or I do it perfectly. But I would be a liar to say that I have not tasted and seen it to be true.