Love is Not Self-Seeking

Before Larry Stewart ever became wealthy, someone had shown him unexpected kindness.

In 1971, Stewart was broke, hungry, and apparently contemplating leaving a Mississippi diner without paying for his meal. The owner, Ted Horn, understood his situation. He handed Stewart a $20 bill and said, “Son, you must have dropped this.”

Stewart never forgot that kindness.

Years later, Stewart had a job and some money, but in 1979 he was fired for the second year in a row just before Christmas. Sitting at a drive-in restaurant, he noticed a carhop shivering in the cold without an adequate jacket.

“I think I got it bad,” he thought. “She’s out there in this cold making nickels and dimes.”

He gave her a $20 tip.

Her emotional reaction touched him deeply. Stewart went to the bank, withdrew $200, and began looking for people who needed help. That simple act eventually became a 26-year tradition.

As Stewart became more successful in the cable television and long-distance telephone business, his gifts became larger. He became known in Kansas City as “Secret Santa,” anonymously handing out $5, $10, and eventually $100 bills to people who appeared to be struggling. He deliberately kept his identity secret because he wasn’t looking for recognition.

By the time he revealed his identity in 2006, he had given away approximately $1.3 million.

Someone loved Larry when he had nothing to offer in return—and Larry learned to do the same for others.

That’s what Paul means when he says, “Love does not seek its own” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

The expression means that love doesn’t insist on its own way. It doesn’t constantly ask, “What do I want? What do I deserve? What do I get out of this?” Love looks outward. Love notices. Love serves. Love puts another person ahead of self.

The NIV captures the thought well: “Love is not self-seeking.” Another paraphrase puts it simply: Love isn’t always “me first.”

Paul gives us a beautiful commentary on this kind of love in Philippians 2:

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Of course, Jesus is the ultimate example of unselfish love. He gave when we had nothing to offer in return. His unselfish love is forever etched in the cross, where He gave His life so that we might have eternal life.

He loved us when we were undeserving.

Love begins when we stop asking, “What about me?” and start asking, “What about someone else?”

William Barclay observed that love doesn’t insist upon its rights and privileges. Instead of constantly thinking about what life owes us, love never forgets what it owes life.

Most of us may never demonstrate love as Larry Stewart did, and certainly not as Jesus did. But we can learn to love unselfishly.

We can love by placing another person’s needs ahead of our personal advantage, self-interest, or convenience.

• Unselfish love is a deacon willing to serve with no thought of receiving something in return.
• Unselfish love is one spouse adjusting personal plans to support the other during a difficult season.
• Unselfish love is a church member choosing a role that meets a need rather than one that brings recognition.
• Unselfish love is listening when we’d rather talk, giving someone the last word, changing our plans to help someone else, and doing what needs to be done even when no one notices.
• Unselfish love doesn’t care who gets the credit, as long as the goal is accomplished.

Charles G. Finney wrote in Principles of Love, “Love seeks to serve in the most menial way with no thought of reward, praise or special recognition.”

That’s the kind of love Jesus demonstrated. And that’s the kind of love He calls us to demonstrate.

When love walks into a room, it doesn’t ask, “What’s in this for me?”

It asks, “What can I do for you?”

Indeed, when we love more, we give more.

Love is unselfish.

—Ken Weliever, The Preacherman