Daily Radio Program with Charles Stanley - In Touch Ministries - The Power of Love - Part 2

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Discover the way love acts, according Paul's description in 1 Corinthians 13.Donate: https://store.intouch.org/donate/generalSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to the In-Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, July 23rd. Today's podcast dives into 1st Corinthians 13, showing us how to deal with difficult people by resting in the power of God's love. Learn practical ways to respond with patience, grace, and compassion, transforming challenging relationships through the love that only God can provide. Love will enable you and me to live a certain way that without love, we can't live that way. We can try to fake it out, but we can't live that way. Love empowers and enables us to live a certain way. When I think about it, you have one or two choices in life. You can walk around life full of anger, bitterness, bitterness, resentment, hostility, and

unforgiveness, just messed up and frustrated in life and unhappy and no peace, no joy, and just making it through life and getting up on Monday morning and thinking, well, I've got another whole week to live. Or you can get up with the love of God flowing in your life and flowing through. your life. You know what happens? It doesn't make a difference how anybody treats you. It doesn't make difference what the weather's like. Nothing makes any real difference because the source of your joy, your happiness, and your love is flowing from within you. It has nothing to do with how people treat you on the outside. And so often, we think that we love in response to others. Love isn't just

a response. Love is an action. Love is a choice that you and I make. And those of us who know Jesus Christ is our personal savior, we have tapped into that inexhaustible, infinite resource of the love of Almighty God, which means that we have a capacity to love, most people will never begin to understand in the whole lifetime. So, notice what Paul begins, how he begins in this fourth verse. He says, first of all, love will enable you and me to wait. That's what this means when he says, love is patient.

That is, love will empower us. Love will enable you and me to wait on God's timing, to wait for God's purposes. Love enables us to wait. Then if you notice, he says, love enables us to be kind, to express kindness. That means that you and I have the capacity to be kind toward others, whether they're kind to us or not. And oftentimes we'll be criticized, abused, falsely accused, whatever it might be. What is our response to be?

Well, humanly speaking, we want to respond the way the way. world speaks and the way the world responds. But love, that is because I have God loving on the inside of me, it doesn't make a difference what someone says to us about us. It does to us. We have the response and we can respond in kindness. Then he says, love is not jealous. That is love will enable me to share. You see, if I know how to have a friend, I can share those friends with other people. when I'm jealous only because I don't want to lose you or I don't want to share you with someone else, then that is a kind of jealousy. He says that you and I, who are his children, who are filled with his love, have the capacity and the power to share without fear.

And, of course, that is sharing wisely in the wisdom of God and in the confines of what he allows. Then you'll notice he says, we have the power, love enables us to have poise. And what is he saying? He says, we are not bragg at Osho and we're not arrogant. Love doesn't have to brag. You know why? Because love has such a relationship with God when we're loving him and loving others. We have a relationship with him. He satisfies us. It doesn't make any of it as what nobody else thinks, what they say, what they do. We're full of the love of God. We're experiencing something. We don't need anything on the outside to make us feel complete. So he says, love is poised. It has the power and the potential to stand, quietly on the inside, no matter what's going on on the outside. It isn't arrogant. It doesn't

have to be the center of attention. It does not have to do all the talking. Then if you'll notice, he says, it does not act unbecomingly, or love is polite. Love has the power. Love enables us to be well-mannered and to be polite and to be careful no matter what's going on around us and no matter who it is, because we're the sons and daughters of God. And he says, by this all men shall know that you're my disciples, that you have loved one toward another. How does love act? Love acts politely. Love acts in a manner that is well-mannered. Then he says, love, listen to this, love does not seek its own. What is he saying? Love surrenders its rights. You know why? Because love never loses. You can't ever lose loving.

Then he says, if you'll notice, he says that it is not provoked. That is, love enables me to have a quiet spirit no matter what. Now, when you and I learn to love, people can say all kinds of things, and we can just stand, listen to them, and smile and say, thank you very much. Sorry, you don't understand, or I understand how you feel, what you're saying. Or if they accuse us, you hear you are Christian, you this and you that, just let it go by. Now, we have to learn to love. We certainly do have to learn to love. But we can respond in the proper fashion. We don't have to be, as he says, easily provoked. And if we're easily provoked, then touch you, it's because we are wrapped up in ourselves.

He says, for those of us who understand the love of God to experience that. Let them say what they want to say. Do what they want to do. We don't have to be. defend ourselves, we can just love them in return no matter what. Then he says, this love that we're speaking of here, he says, it does not seek its own, it's not provoked, it does not take into account a wrong suffer. Now listen very carefully. Did you know that one of the primary problems in people's relationships is an unforgiving spirit? You know what Paul says in this passage? When he speaks here of does not take into account wrong suffered. Here's what he's saying, that love enables me to forgive, it empowers me to forgive no matter what. Think about this. An unforgiving spirit is a spirit

of bondage. An unforgiving spirit is a spirit of imprisonment because you cannot keep score without being imprisoned by what's on the scoreboard. And God does not intend for us to act. Let me ask you a question. How many sins have you ever committed that God has not forgiven you for? Not a one. Well, let me ask you this. What right do you and I have? Is it even fitting to you and me as believers, followers of Jesus Christ, that we are such that we can't forgive someone for something that God has forgiven them for? If a person is a believer, they live in the forgiveness of God.

Now, he'll bring about discipline to remind them of what they've done in correct. their conduct and their actions, a sense of direction. But forgiveness is no choice on my part. Forgiveness is just the part of being a believer, forgiving. The unbeliever has a real difficult time of this. But for the child of God, we have God's love on the inside of us flowing through us. He enables us. That's the power of love. Probably 95% of the people who have problems in their relationships, if not more, have problems with an unforgiving spirit. They just can't forgive. But Paul says love enables you and me, if you've got a scoreboard, love enables us to erase it on what basis?

He says when he pardoned us, he pardoned us from all sin, past, present, and future. The crucifixion took care of. He says it keeps no score of wrongs, no matter what it may be. Forgiveness is the only way godly people can live. no matter what. Do you have the capacity to do it in your own self? No. But there's somebody inside of you who is willing to let that love flow through you no matter what.

And you see, if you have an unforgiving spirit, you're a prisoner. And it's amazing to me how people hate and have animosity and bitterness and resentment and hostility and all these things going on inside of them. And they think that that's legitimate. It may be legitimate from their perspective, but what it's doing is poison their whole system. A person who is living with an unforgiving spirit is a person who's living in poison. And what's happening is that poison has absolutely saturated everything from their mind, the top of their head, the bottom of their toes. This poison is dripping out. And you know what

will happen? When a person is like that, you don't have to be around them very long before what happens. They begin to pour it out. And so he says, love does not keep, does not take into account wrong suffered. He says likewise, love doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. We do hate evil and injustice. We're supposed to hate that kind of thing, the thing that sin does. Not hate the one who is committing the injustice, but hate the evil itself. For example, in spite of everything we see on the outside, the real truth is this. Every single person God's ever created has within them the capacity to become something. but so often the way they grow up so often the way they're treated so often the what they learn

and what they have not learned what they've been exposed to what they've not been exposed to all of that is a part of this poisonous system that has caused them to be so corrupted in their morality so corrupted in their view of life that they want to destroy someone else but deep down inside of that there is somebody and let me ask a question why is it that you and i have not committed these atrocious crimes. Because by the grace of God, the goodness of God, the love of God, and by things you and I don't understand, we didn't grow up in that kind of a situation. Somebody taught us better. We learned better. We had parents or one parent or maybe didn't have any parents around us, but somehow we received enough truth, got enough of the right influence. We don't, we don't

participate in that. But there are people out there, that's all they've ever known is grab, stab, climb, beat, shove, push, get it, no matter what. Does that mean they don't have the capacity to love? It means that it's been so covered up for so long. It may appear they have no capacity, but God created them with the same capacity that you and I have naturally. Then when we find the Lord Jesus Christ is our Savior, then we know how to love someone.

But the most unlovable person is worth saving no money. matter what. The reason I know that is because when he said, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him, the most unlovable, despicable kind of person. God loves every single person equally. Does he treat us all alike? No. Will he save anybody? Yes. God does not have any kind of slates, scoreboards, he's keeping on anybody. He just loves us. And you know what? He wants us to love in the same way. And he says, it rejoices in the truth. Love wants the truth about itself. You see, when you and I are loving, we want them the truth about us as well as other people,

because we want to become the person's God wants us to be. Then he says, love bears all things. Now what does that mean? That word really means to cover things. Love, the love of God within me empowers and enables me to hear bad things about people and keep it to myself. Covers a multitude of sins. You see, if you're the kind of person who gets to the telephone just as soon as you hear something bad, that's not loving. When he says love covers a multitude of sins, it means no matter what's bad in your life. I don't want to just share that with the world. I want to help you deal with it if I can.

I may not be able to do anything but keep my mouth shut. Love covers a multitude of sins. If I love someone, I'm looking out for their happiness, their security, and their well-being. Now, their well-being may cause me to go to that person and say, this is not right. And you need to correct this. And I'm willing to help you if I possibly can. Because, you see, I want you to become the godly person. God wants you to be.

And I'm willing to help you build those characteristics in your life that God wants so that you can become the person you want to be. but being openly critical, gossiping, caustic criticism, none of that has to do with love. But it also does mean to be willing to bear someone else's burden. Move over to Galatians chapter 5. You recall in this passage when Paul is talking about people making mistakes and stumbling in their life in the earlier part. then he says in the sixth chapter and he says in verse one brethren even if a man or woman's caught in any trespass you who are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness each one looking to yourself lest you to be tempted bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of christ now what's the law of christ remember what he said

He said, all the law and the prophets hang on this. Thou should love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, strength, and thy neighbor's yourself. He says, now we're to bear each other's burdens, and when you and I are willing to get up under somebody else's load, it may be an emotional load, it may be something in their finances, and the job it is making them is what it is. He says, love is reaching beyond itself, willing to bear to help. to help to cover if necessary, willing to protect, willing to get up under that load and share that

load with someone else. Then he says, it bears all things, it believes all things. Does that mean that if we are loving people, that we're just gullible, we believe everything we hear? No. Here's what it means. Love enables me to believe the best about someone no matter what. That's what love does. You see, love isn't suspicious, always looking for some reason to criticize. Then if you'll notice he says, that love hopes all things. That means simply this, that love enables me to hope for the best in you no matter what's going on. When somebody loves us and we know that they love us and we feel their love and we're experiencing their love, you know what, it doesn't make any difference. how bad, how difficult, how deep, how dark, how dingy it may be,

there is something that stimulates hope and invigorates and brings the birth, hope in our life when we feel loved by someone else. He says love hopes all things, and then he says, love endures all things. What does he mean? Simply this. That if when you and I love, there is a strength

listen to this there is a strength there is a power there is an energy there is a source of strength within us that flows through us that enables us to bear up and to bear and to receive

and to go through the troubles the trials the heartaches you know what happens somehow he keeps us steady the truth is when the love of God is flowing in your life and mind we're tapped into this inexhaustible resource and God's love can flow through us and what's happening? We're not settled on ourselves.

We're thinking about other people. And so we endure by the strength that God gives. It is the love within us that enables us to endure. And then he concludes this part of this passage by simply saying in verse 8, listen, love never fails. That is love is unending. When you and I have the love of God within our hearts. Let me ask you, when is it going to run out? It's not going to ever run out. Here's what it means ultimately. That no matter what's going on and how long it goes on, no matter what troubles us and trials and heartaches we face, no matter what people say, what they do to us, he says, the proper response is always love. That never fails. It never fails. You see, because if my response to difficult in hardship and trial abuse or whatever it may be, if my response is always

to love the other person, here's what that means. Watch this now. That means that no matter what they do, I am still a free man because I don't allow them to imprison me with my bitterness and resentment and anger and hostility and unforgiving spirit. And if I should ask you, do you want to be free or prison. Everybody wants to be free. And my friend, if you want to be free, the love of God must flow in your heart. And where does it begin? This is where it begins. It begins with you placing your trust in Christ as your personal Savior and having your sins forgiven. And when you trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and what you're saying is, I do believe that what he did at the cross, atone for my sin, paid my sin debt and full, and I receive him as my personal Savior for forgiveness of

my sins, then the love of God begins to flow in your life. Because the Spirit of God comes to take up a boat and he begins to flow. And he will allow that love to flow in your life. You know what happens? All of life begins to change. You have the capacity now to walk in the freedom that only love can provide. Where love is missing, there is no freedom. where love is present, there is an awesome power within you to walk above what life may throw at you.

And I believe that he wants us all to be walking, fountains of love, his love flowing, overflowing in us and through us to other people who are hurting all around us. And somehow, when I'm giving myself away to someone else, I'm not thinking about me. And when I've given myself away to someone else, the love of God is so full. flowing through us that we don't feel like we've given away, because the love of God is continually replenishing all that we give. Love is the eternal gift of God that keeps us the free children of God, which brings him the glory that he's seeking. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of The Power of Love. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our online 24-7 station.

And if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.