Love is Good Temper – Part Two.

Or rephrased: Love is NOT Bad Temper. It does not need to show itself as the "red hot" of the love color spectrum.

In his book “The Greatest Thing in the World” Henry Drummond discusses the effects of the temper of the elder brother on the Prodigal Son (and his Father). Drummond asks the question: How many prodigals never come homes because of the unlovely characters inside the house.

What is temper made of: Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness – these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul.

A dictionary definition of temper: habit of mind, especially with respect the irritability or patience, outbursts of anger, or the like. Heat of mind or passion, shown in outbursts of anger, resentment, etc.

“You will see then why Temper is significant. It is not in what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why I take the liberty now of speaking of it with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a sample of the most hidden product of the soul dropped involuntarily when off one’s guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundred hideous and un-Christian sins.” (H. Drummond)

The temper of a person will set the temperature of a household. It sets the tone. The experience or the memories of and with this temper will determine whether people want to get close, whether they want to come in … or come home.

In our house, we are not “touchy” --- and we remind each of other of that whenever it’s appropriate. Allowing yourself to be touchy, will open the door to other selfish thoughts.

I am not touchy and I don’t ever want to be a hindrance to anyone coming home . . . Home for any reason. How about you?

Love is Good Temper

Love is Good Temper.

“Love is not easily provoked. We are inclined to look at bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failure, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man’s character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements in human nature.” (Henry Drummond)

These words give new insight into the deadly ripple effects of a bad temper. Henry has described this characteristic so plainly and with such naked exposure, that it reveals in blatant form that “the wages of sin is death.” Bad temper will kill relationships, trust, peace, even the future for those around it. This is no light thing. A bad temper is destructive in every example of itself.

Drummond paints this description further: “You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or “touchy” disposition. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to un-Christianize society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom off childhood; in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence stands alone.”

Take a moment – analyze yourself. Do you have a good temper – all the time? Even in the provoking moments, how do you control yourself? Practice your answer.

Tomorrow --- more on the effects of our Temper. This one characteristic can hinder or prevent those closest to you from coming into the Kingdom – or even coming home!

Love is . . . Courtesy -- A very nice colour!

Love is Courtesy.

This is Love in society, Love in relation to etiquette. “Love doth not behave itself unseemly.” Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little things. (Drummond)

Love in society – Please and Thank you (the “magic” words). Love is polite and considers the others around me. It opens doors for others. Love never eats the last cookie or piece of cake. Love puts the toilet seat down and love excuses itself after burbs and belches and . . . well, you know.


Love is Unselfishness.

“Love seeketh not her own.” It is not hard to give up our rights. They are often external. The difficult thing is to give up ourselves. (Henry Drummond)

Courtesy and Unselfishness – closely related. These go hand in hand.

More of the Love Spectrum - Generosity and Humility

Love is Generosity.

Love envieth not. (It is not jealous). Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. (Henry Drummond)

It’s interesting to me that rather than say love is not jealous, Henry Drummond instead focused on what love is – generosity. We have all heard that giving will cover a multitude of selfishness sins --- and yes, envy and jealousy would be the top two perhaps. Getting to the place where you are giving – to get outside of your own feelings, will turn a situation around. It takes the focus off of me, and puts it on you. That’s love.


Love is Humility.

And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this further thing, Humility – to put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after Love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even self satisfaction.

Wow – Love waives even self satisfaction. That’s a sentence to meditate.

Love is patience

Love is patience.

“Love is patience. This is the normal attitude of love. Love passive, Love waiting to begin; not in a hurry; calm; ready to do its work when the summons comes but in the meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Love understands, and therefore waits.” (Henry Drummond)

Henry Drummond says this perfectly. Love waits. Love doesn’t push. Love doesn’t expect its own way. It prefers others. It gives the right of way. It allows someone with only a few items to get in line ahead of you. Love smiles in those lines. Love gives room for growth – and the time to do it.


Another colour of the love spectrum:

Love is Kindness.

Love active. Have you noticed how much of Christ’s life was spent in doing kind things – in merely doing kind things? You will find that Jesus spent a great proportion of His time simply in making people happy, in doing good turns to others. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world and that is holiness; and it is not in our keeping; but what God has put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them. (Henry Drummond)

“The greatest thing,” says one man, “a man can for His Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children.”

The Greatest Thing in the World. Love.

The Greatest Thing in the World. Love.

Henry Drummond lived over 100 years ago (1851-1897) and has written one (of many) of the most influential books I have read. This man knew how to communicate who God is. Specifically – he understood Love.

“It is a compound thing. It’s like light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colours – red, and blue, and yellow, and violet, and orange, and all the colours of the rainbow – so Paul (in 1 Cor 13) passes this thing, Love, through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements. And in these few words we have what one might call the Spectrum of Love, the analysis of Love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you notice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we hear about every day; that they are things which can be practiced by every man in every place in life.”

Henry says the Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:

Patience – “Love suffereth long.”
Kindness – “And is kind.”
Generosity – “Love envieth not”
Humility – “Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.”
Courtesy – “Doth not behave itself unseemly.”
Unselfishness – “Seeketh not her own.”
Good Temper – “Is not easily provoked.”
Guilelessness – “Thinketh no evil.”
Sincerity – “Rejoiceth not in inquity, but rejoiceth in truth.”

“These make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man.”

Stay with me over the next several days --- We’ll look at these one ingredient at a time.

I’m going to make it my best recipe this week.