If you’re a believer, here is what your spiritual X-ray looks like.  You are a born-again spirit, created after God is true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24).  The love of God is poured out in your heart (Romans 5:5).  You have God’s kind of love inside you at all times!

Now I didn’t say that you’re always going to feel like you have that love inside you.  Your emotions are subject to circumstances and can change quickly.  However, God’s kind of love is not an emotion. It is something far deeper.  God’s love is an unconditional love that is not based on emotion -- emotion is not a condition of it.  Love blesses others, does good to others and prays for others even when they do you dirty.  And if you live on planet Earth, there will always be people doing your dirty, or at least trying to.  Thank God that we are able to love everyone because of that love that has been poured out inside us by the Holy Spirit.

Let’s take a look at some verses from 1 Corinthians 13, because they describe the real you – the loving child of a loving Heavenly Father.  (I’ve provided a little commentary with it.)  When you read these, don’t say, “Naw, that’s not me – I’m not that nice.” The real you on the inside is that nice; it’s just your flesh that gives you trouble.

You suffer long (this is about enduring criticism and junk from others, not suffering a long time from a disease!) and are kind.

You do not envy. You’re not jealous of anybody. You don’t wish you were someone else or that you had someone else’s ministry or place in life. You’re happy when others are blessed, not upset that it wasn’t you getting blessed that particular time.

You don’t parade yourself and act puffed up. You are not an attention-hungry me-first egomaniac.

You are not rude.  You do not blow up at people and insult them. You don’t “look out for #1” before you look out for others.  You are not irritable; it’s hard to provoke you.  You don’t have a short temper. You aren’t quick to believe the latest dirt that someone dishes out on someone else.  You don’t dwell on the shortcomings of others.  You don’t have a secret database of everyone’s failures so that you can feel superior to them.

You are not the type of person who throws a party on the inside when someone falls and says, “Yeah, he had it coming!”  You are glad when the truth is proclaimed.

You are able to be insulted and persecuted and still stay sweet. You stay in faith and you always hope for the best.  You are able to persevere through difficult circumstances; you don’t quit pursuing what’s right just because someone gets upset with your Christian stand.

That’s the real you. It is just as natural for you to walk in love as it is for a chickadee to say Chick-a-Dee-Dee-Dee. It is just as natural for you to walk in love as it is for a bald eagle to soar.  It is just as natural for you to walk in love as it is for an apple tree to produce apples. It’s your nature to walk in love!

That’s what you’re really like on the inside.  The Bible is like a spiritual X-ray machine; it reveals the “hidden man of the heart” that God created when you were born again. If you want to know your real inner condition, get out your Bible and check your X-rays. Your mind and your flesh might try to give you trouble, but once you know what you’re really like on the inside, you can let your “inner man” dominate you instead of your “outer man”.

If you’ve had problems with jealousy, irritability, and so on, try this because it will help a lot.  Get out 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and put your name in there. “___ suffers long and is kind. ____ does not envy. ___ does not parade himself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek his own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”