Love is Submissive

The love that God desires for His people to have has many wonderful virtues. It is
kind, patient, humble, and submissive.

“It does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor.13:5)
Other translations, like the New King James, translate the clause as “does not seek its
own.” What does that mean? The Christian with godly love does not seek to impose
his personal agenda on his brothers and sisters. Instead, he submits or yields to
others, setting aside personal preferences and opinions. Why? Because doing the
opposite would be harmful to the group, as well as being displeasing to God.
There’s nothing wrong with having ideas and making suggestions about how to do
something God wants us to do as a church. It’s absolutely appropriate to give your
reasons why you support a certain action or method or whatever. But it would be
wrong to insist that it must be done your way.

In his third epistle, the apostle John calls out a Christian by the name of Diotrephes
because he sought to impose his will in an ironfisted way on his fellow Christians,
going so far as excommunicating brethren with whom he did not like and defying the
authority of the apostles.

“I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first,
does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing,
talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome
the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.” (3
John 1:9–10 ESV)

Diotrephes may be an extreme example of this abuse of imposing one’s will on others,
but history is filled with malicious evildoers who carried things to extremes in pursuit of
their own personal agendas and schemes. Some of them were in the church.
These verses on love make it plain that the attitude and behavior of the faithful
Christian is oriented around sacrifice. And who gets sacrificed? Self! It should be clear
in our minds from reading these verses that love is unselfish, thoughtful, considerate,
courteous, and flexible.

Flexibility. Submission. That’s what the apostle means when he says love does not
insist on its own way, or does not seek its own. He’s talking about someone who will
budge, shift their thinking, or see things from the other person’s perspective.

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let
each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own
interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in
Christ Jesus,” (Php.2:3–5 NKJV).
– Kurt Paquette