Love and Unrighteousness

Many people's idea of love is for people to be left to do whatever they want and never be corrected for it. But 1 Corinthians 13:6 says that love does not rejoice in unrighteousness. On the contrary, we are told that love for God and our neighbor is the sum total of God's commands and that all the other commands flow from it (Romans 13:8-13; James 2:8-11; Galatians 5:13,14. Why is this so? As C. S. Lewis points out in The Problem of Pain, a genuine deep love, like the love of parent and child or husband and wife, wants what is best for the other person and not just what they happen to want. This represents a stronger type of love, rather than a weaker type. Now there are those self-righteous people who condemn others to build themselves up (Matthew 23:4-7; Luke 18:9-14; Romans 2:1). But there are also those who correct in love, in order to help the other person (Hebrews 12:7-13; Galatians 6:1; Luke 19:1-10). Therefore, we should not just accept all behavior, but be careful we are dealing with it in the right attitude.