God is love, but love is not God. Contrary to popular opinion today, love is not nice words, pleasant tones, and approval. The world's definition of 'love' is a fleeting feeling of lust. To most professing Christians today, 'love' has become synonymous with being "nice" and approving things. It has taken on an eerily similar definition to the world's false definition of love. Most people's concept of 'love' today is a hippie kind of love, meaning to be in agreement, which is a basis for Universalism. "Everybody should get along." "Let's all just be nice." "Live and let live." This is a false and demonic definition of what love is.
Was Jesus unloving when He was harsh with the Pharisees and calling out their hypocrisy? Was Paul unloving when he dealt with the church in Corinth? or when he confronted Peter for being a hypocrite? or when he told the Galatians that those who were bothering them should just castrate themselves? Is God being unloving when His Word tells us to confront those with sin in their lives? Most professing Christians today have zero integrity, honour, and boldness. They have the attitude of Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" According to the New Testament, yes, you are!
Most people today have a false understanding of what love is and what it looks like. Their concept of love stems from cotton candy theology, and not from the Bible! They war against what the Bible has to say, yet persist in calling themselves "Christian." If you imitate everything Jesus said and did, as well as His apostles, these people label you as "unloving," which means they are labeling Christ and His apostles as unloving. Their life and their doctrine are at odds. They make profession with their lips but they walk not according to their talk. Like the Pharisees, they are hypocrites. They even try to justify their disobedience, just like the Pharisees.
Was Jesus unloving when He was harsh with the Pharisees and calling out their hypocrisy? Was Paul unloving when he dealt with the church in Corinth? or when he confronted Peter for being a hypocrite? or when he told the Galatians that those who were bothering them should just castrate themselves? Is God being unloving when His Word tells us to confront those with sin in their lives? Most professing Christians today have zero integrity, honour, and boldness. They have the attitude of Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" According to the New Testament, yes, you are!
Most people today have a false understanding of what love is and what it looks like. Their concept of love stems from cotton candy theology, and not from the Bible! They war against what the Bible has to say, yet persist in calling themselves "Christian." If you imitate everything Jesus said and did, as well as His apostles, these people label you as "unloving," which means they are labeling Christ and His apostles as unloving. Their life and their doctrine are at odds. They make profession with their lips but they walk not according to their talk. Like the Pharisees, they are hypocrites. They even try to justify their disobedience, just like the Pharisees.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a is not an exhaustive list of what love is.
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.
If love "believes all things," does that include falsehoods? Does that include heresy and false doctrine? Quite obviously not. While everything stated there is true, nevertheless it is not an exhaustive list of what love is. For example, true love needs to be rooted and anchored in God Himself: "God is love." Love is obedient to God: "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." Real love is marked by truth: "...those who perish...did not receive the love of the truth..." Where truth is absent, love ceases to exist; it is emotional euphoria. Love is without hypocrisy, and it hates evil: "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good." True love is marked by increasing knowledge and discernment: "And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment."
If knowledge and discernment are stifled or regressing, either the Holy Spirit is impotent, or you are not abiding in Christ, which means you are walking in disobedience. If you are abiding in His love, the Spirit of truth will lead you into all truth, which means knowledge and discernment will be increasing. This is how it works. There is no alternative. If your Christian life is stagnant, it is because you are not exhibiting true love. If you were, then all these things would be increasing, which would be making you more holy and more Christ-like.
Love is a verb. It requires action. It is based on the will. It is a decision. It is not an emotion or a feeling. The feeling of 'love' is nothing more than lust, infatuation, and heat of the moment. It is not real love. Without the Source of true love, you cannot give what you do not have. In other words, you cannot love your family truly and properly because you're not connected to the Source of love. You may have an appearance of love, and feel something for your family, but it is not true love. Without everything we have just looked at, whatever you are calling "love" is not love in the least. It is a cheap imitation. If you want to see what love in action looks like, look to the life of Christ. In every single moment, He exemplified love. Nothing He did was without love. Every moment of Jesus' life was the perfect expression of true love. If you want to see what love looks like in all of its forms, pick any moment from the life of Jesus and know that what you are seeing is true love in absolute perfection. Jesus was not always nice, nor did He always speak in soft tones. He certainly did not approve of everything. Yet everything He did was in, and out of, love.
In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounces woe eight times! He calls them hypocrites seven times! He calls them blind guides and blind men four times! He calls them sons of hell! He calls them fools! He says they are robbers and self-indulgent! He says they are dead men! He calls them serpents and brood of vipers! Not once in all these things was Jesus ever without love. What you see here is perfect love. Not a drop of love was absent in His dealing with the Pharisees. The idea that Christians must always be nice and speak in pleasant tones and approve of everything comes directly from the father of lies and straight out of the pit of hell! Shame on any self-professing Christian who advocates and promotes such godless, unbiblical nonsense!
Most "Christians" today would have accused Jesus of being "unChrist-like" and "unloving." They would have accused Him of "lacking compassion" and "lacking grace." Most "Christians" today would have asked Jesus, "Where's the love?" They have adopted a false post-modern concept of "love." They do not know what love is or what it looks like. They also have no concept as to what grace is or what grace looks like. When Jesus pronounced those woes, was He without grace?
The next time someone accuses you of being "unloving" because you have "abrasive undertones" and you are not always "nice" and do not always speak with "pleasant tones," they need to examine their own life and compare it to Scripture. Chances are pretty high that it is they who have the problem because they are not abiding in Christ, or walking in obedience, or receiving the truth, or walking without hypocrisy, or growing in knowledge and discernment. The latter is quite obvious based on the simple fact that they clearly have no clue as to what love is or what it looks like. In their condemnation of you, they are also condemning Jesus. Anger and love are not mutually exclusive. Different people and different circumstances warrant different dealings altogether. Why did Jesus not deal with everyone in the exact same manner? Because they were completely different people, different circumstances, different degrees of knowledge, different levels of egregious behaviour, and different levels of obstinence. "To whom much is given, much will be required." Religious hypocrites deserve a harsher, more abrasive tone, but it does not in any way, shape, or form indicate that you are "unloving" or "without grace."