Scripture Text: "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." I Corinthians 13:4

Yesterday I spoke on something that LOVE is not. Love is not jealous. Today I would like to speak on something else that love is not. Love is not boastful. There is a story in the Bible of a family that was overcome by jealousy and by boasting and it caused much hurt and sorrow in the family. I am sure that many of you can guess the story. The young man's name was Joseph, he was his father's favorite, and his brothers knew it. He would dream dreams, where his brothers would bow down before him. Joseph boasted of his dreams to his brothers. His brothers nick named him the dreamer. Because of these dreams and because of their father's great love for Joseph, they became very jealous of him and this jealousy turned into hate. Read the 37th chapter of Genesis and you will see how this jealousy became hatred. Then in verse 20 this jealousy and hatred grew until they plotted, "Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams." When they came to their father, Jacob, he mourned so greatly that all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, but were unable to.

I Corinthians 13:4 says "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not, love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." As Christians we should be humble. We should remember that all we have, whether it be physical things, such as money, homes, land, cars what ever, or if it be wisdom or talents, that they came from God and we should be thankful for them. We got all that we have because God is such a gracious God and the last thing we should be doing is Bragging about all we have. Take a lesson from Joseph, the bragging will cause others to hate us and even despise us. I love the way Steve Brown in his book "Spiritual Gifts" puts it. "The world says, Toot your own horn because no one else will do it for you. God says, It is not important that your horn gets tooted, but if it is tooted, let it, by no means, be tooted by you." As Christians we need to be humble, and the one thing that we should boast about is the love of God. When others see you, do they see Jesus. God bless you. Let's pray.

Father sometimes it is hard not to boast, but teach us not to be boastful. Lord teach us to be humble and to remember that all we have came from you. For the many gifts Lord that you have bestowed upon us we are so thankful. Teach us Lord to share with others and to do our part to give the greatest gift of all to others, You Lord. Today Lord may we be LOVE. In Jesus name I pray Amen.