Love is not resentful

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I hope you are being challenged by the discussions in this mini series on love because I sure am! It is important to me to be a doer of the word of God - not a blogger only. Today, we will take a look at how true love is not resentful. Some attributes of love already covered can be found here:
1st - Love is patient
2nd - Love is kind
3rd - Love does not envy
4th - Love does not boast; it is not arrogant or rude
5th - Love does not insist on its own way
6th - Love is not irritable

Love is not resentful

Resentment is that awful feeling that eats you up inside when just the mention of someone's name makes you angry and bitter. It is driven by evil thoughts about a person and this deep seated feeling of malice and ill-will only gets worse over time. It will become obsessive if not dealt with. And much like envy and unforgiveness, resentment will always do most harm to the one who incubates it but will eventually result in that person doing much harm to others, as doors to other evils are left wide open.

Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.
Hebrews 12:14-15

A tragic and troubling case of resentment and unforgiveness turned king David's son, Absalom, into a bitter, murderous, immoral, treacherous, conniving enemy of his father and eventually it cost him his life. What started at anger towards a half-brother, Amnon (who had committed an outrageous and vile evil against Absalom's sister, Tamar), and perhaps resentment at the fact that his father had done nothing to bring justice to Amnon and console Tamar for her disgrace, became a fully-grown cancer in his own soul. He incubated this resentment for two years before pre-meditating the murder of Amnon. Years later, after he was brought back from what resembled exile, his father refused to see him and the bitterness grew greater and deeper. The unfolding of this historic tragedy found in 2 Samuel 13-18 is worth reading carefully in your own time.

Be wary of being allied with a person who has the ability to harbor grudges and long standing hatred against another person - no matter who was wrong or right. Resentment is an internal and festering sore that is evidence that something very dark is growing on the inside of that person. As a result, such a person cannot also walk in the Spirit, nor walk in love.

God's command is that followers of Christ forgive others, and love, bless and pray for enemies. I believe that this is not just about 'being good for goodness sake', nor is it a merely a way of submitting to His way and time of vengeance. I believe that obeying this command also protects our own heart from being corrupted by evils such as resentment, and is a very real form of spiritual warfare. We will not be overcome by evil, but will overcome evil with good. Love thinks no evil. Love is not resentful.