When we express concern and dismay at how someone is treating us, and the response is to argue, then we know they meant to do it and don't care about our concern.
When love is present, we are deeply aware of the way we treat others so that they will sense love, even if that love is expressed in correction to help.
Those who refuse to communicate in love without anger are those who only care about winning over and controlling you.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 "4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant.
5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered,
6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
1 John 4:6-7 "6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception. 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
Those who are walking in the Spirit easily recognize God's love emanating from someone, and they just as easily recognize a lack of love radiating from those who love themselves more than anyone else, including God.
1 Peter 2:11 "Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul."
The desires of the flesh drive out love, leaving room only for self-indulgence and personal aggrandizement.
John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”
Hebrews 5:14 "…13 For everyone who lives on milk is still an infant, inexperienced in the message of righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil."
Ephesians 4:13-14 "until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as we mature to the full measure of the stature of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming."
James 1:22-25 "Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise, you are deceiving yourselves. For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. …
have trained their senses."
Proverbs 2:1-5 "My son, if you accept my words and hide my commandments within you, if you incline your ear to wisdom and direct your heart to understanding, if you truly call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding,"
Those who seek Christ with the intention of learning and obeying will be those who will develop God's love for others and obedience to Him. These people will be very discerning in ways others cannot notice good from bad.
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