The Ingredients of Genuine Love

“Be always humble, gentle and patient. Show your love by being tolerant with one another.” (Eph. 4:2 TEV)

Paul exhorts us here to be people of true love. Genuine love is being described in the above verse. Brotherly love among believers is the mark of unity in the Church. People must see the true love of believers, how they are growing in mutual fellowship, and those people will certainly come to Christ through them. The main reason why the light in us is not shining is that most of us do not lead an exemplary Christian life. Now, let our inner eyes be opened and may we understand the essentiality of humility, gentleness, patience and above all love.

There is certainly no definition for unconditional love. The love that we have is a gift from God. We are able to love because God placed His love in our hearts.

How do we react when suddenly someone in our believer-community points to us our wrongs? Is our love humble enough to accept our mistake and get corrected? Do we exalt ourselves in our churches whenever we are elevated to greater positions? Do we look down upon other believers whenever they are caught doing wrong or are in a lower position than us? A person who has true love will always respect others and never exalt himself, he is humble.

Humility shows that we are people of true love. Whenever quarrels and the like take place in Church, the main reason may be that they are not humble enough to accept mistakes and lovingly pay respect to each other. The way of humility through which we behave with each other will show to others that we truly love each other.

The next character that reveals our love is gentleness. Can you imagine a person who has true love inside his heart and at the same is not gentle but harsh? Difficult situations may arise in our churches when we, the believers need to be united in the Lord and get deliverance from that particular situation through prayer. Those who aren’t gentle will never find it easy to be united when mutual problems arise. Gentleness shows a person’s concern for his fellow being. This concern is born out of love. The love in him helps him to show a gentle approach to everything that happens in his fellowship with other Christians.

To love means to be gentle in all aspects of life. A gentle behavior at home, office, workplace, school, college, society and church shows the love which is inside of us to the outside world. Can we ever say that a person who is not gentle is filled with love? Never! God’s love which is placed inside us helps us to be calm and gentle when our churches suffer problems, the time when the Church needs it the most. To have this blessing in the Church-life, we need to be people who continually experience the love of God.

Patience is the next evidence of true brotherly love among believers. The love Chapter (1 Cor. 13) says in verse 4 “Love is patient and kind….” (TEV) It demands love to be patient when problems and difficulties arise. Even Job was patient because he loved God in spite of all that he was going through. If we, the believers of Christ have true love, we will be patient towards each other in all good and bad times. We will together patiently wait for prayers to be answered, for unity to be strengthened and for believers to grow in love for God and for each other. If we do not have love, we will become impatient when someone creates problems within the Church, when disunity creeps in through lack of mutual understanding, when someone becomes higher through wrong methods etc. But love helps us to be patient in all the circumstances and situations we 
are going through.

Paul says, “Show your love by being tolerant with one another.” What do we need to tolerate? The Oxford Dictionary states the meaning of the word ‘tolerant’ thus: able to accept things you dislike or disagree with. Does this mean we should tolerate all wrong that may be going on in our churches? No, but there is a reality that not all that we dislike or disagree is wrong. Some may like a thing, and others may despise it. We should give equal consideration to everyone’s likes and dislikes. If someone says that something is good, we must not get inside the situation and start arguing merely because we do not like that particular thing. Unity gets broken when believers are not tolerant with one another. The Church in which the believers are tolerant with one another is filled with power and no force of darkness can harm any person in it.


After reading this article, what do you have to say about the love which you have in your heart? Is it genuine? Let us examine ourselves and remove all things that reduce our love for each other. May the good Lord help each one of us to be humble, gentle, patient and tolerant with one another. We will find ourselves in a trap if we do not consider this carefully and fail to love each other genuinely. Love is not just a feeling which occurs when the person to be loved is worthy of love. Love is there at all times, for all people irrespective of how he behaves, what he does and how he does it. This love is a gift from God.