Love is easy when life is light, but what about when misunderstandings wound us or darkness tries to creep into our relationships?

In this message, Nina shares how truth, forgiveness, and faith overcame the enemy’s attempts to divide—and why love never delights in evil, always rejoices with the truth, and never fails.

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Remember, the Lord can turn your wounds into wings—you were Born to be a Butterfly! 🦋

Born to be a Butterfly © 2025 Nina Pajonas All rights reserved. The content of this podcast is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. For the full disclaimer, visit ⁠ninapajonas.com.

Love is something we all talk about,

but it's not always something that we find easy to live out.

It's simple to love when everything is peaceful,

when people treat us kindly, and when life feels steady,

however,

the depth of our love is truly revealed.

When relationships are strained,

misunderstandings occur,

or we are hurt by someone we care about,

it's in those moments that the words of Scripture call us back to the heart of what love truly is.

1 Corinthians 13 says,

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects,

always trusts, always hopes,

always perseveres.

Love never fails.

I want to talk about what it means to walk in love,

not just when it's easy,

but when the truth is tested and when the enemy tries to sow division.

Today I want to share how truth and forgiveness guarded a very dear friendship of mine from the lies of the enemy.

If you've ever wrestled with conflict,

loneliness,

or the sting of misunderstanding,

this word is for you welcome to Born to Be a Butterfly, where we embrace healing and growth in Christ so that we can experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajones and I pray that today's message ministers to you.

The Lord led me to creating a series on this passage.

As God would have it, it has been very timely on my journey, and I pray that it's been of help on yours.

Up until this point in 1 Corinthians 13,

Paul has discussed what love is and what love isn't,

how it behaves and how it doesn't behave.

But here's the part that I don't want us to miss.

If Paul goes so far as to list the very specific ways that love does not behave,

then what is he saying about those attributes?

I believe he was pointing out that envy,

boasting,

pride,

dishonoring or disrespecting others,

self seeking and anger are elements of evil.

I believe Paul is saying that when we exhibit these qualities,

we are embodying something other than Christ.

Then Paul writes,

love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It's easy to glide over this sentence, but we can't afford to.

If we delight in displaying or developing these qualities,

we are not acting as ambassadors of love in those moments.

This brings us back to the very beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul says,

if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels,

but do not have love,

I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge.

And if I have a faith that can move mountains but do not have love,

I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship, that I may boast but do not have love,

I gain nothing.

Paul states it plainly.

Anything we do that is not motivated by love is worthless.

It's not the works themselves that matter.

It's the motive.

If we act out of love for Christ and for our brothers and sisters, that is good and noble.

But if we do it to shine a light on ourselves,

to gain glory for our own names,

it is not of God.

We're human,

of course. We're going to struggle with envy, pride or anger.

But we must be self aware enough to bring it to the Lord so that he can clean it out of us.

Let me be blunt.

If you see people delighting in another person's pain,

even in small ways,

stay away from them.

And if you find yourself even slightly enjoying someone else's hardship,

stop.

Check your heart,

bring it to Christ and surrender it.

Ask him to remove the hatred that is growing inside of you.

Because that's what it is,

it's hatred.

Hate rarely starts that way.

Hate often begins as a simple dislike.

But if it's not surrendered, it evolves.

Just as love multiplies into greater love,

hatred matures into deeper,

darker forms of itself.

Whatever you feed in, your soul will grow.

So you need to ask yourself,

what am I growing in my soul?

We've all dealt with people who have wounded us deeply because their malevolence touched our lives.

Jordan Peterson said it well, and forgive me because I'm paraphrasing,

but he said that human beings can survive a lot of tragedy.

But what's harder to survive is when you encounter malevolence,

when someone intentionally tries to harm you.

I've encountered that.

And it wasn't just disheartening,

it was horrifying.

And let me be clear,

I wasn't afraid of those people.

I was horrified at what they had become.

They were human beings who had become shells of their former selves because they housed a huge amount of hatred in their hearts and in their souls.

They had allowed bitterness to become their identity.

And once your identity becomes pain,

you don't just live in it,

you want to inflict it on others.

That's when hatred takes root and that is when the cycle of destruction continues.

It's imperative that you understand this.

Some people don't want to be healed.

Some people don't want to be saved.

They just want you to validate their victimhood or their vindictiveness or their vile behavior.

But hear me when I say this.

The blood of Jesus does not sign off on that.

And now I want to tell you about a dream that I had earlier this week.

And in it,

I heard what I believe was the voice of God.

Now, I can't be sure, but what I can tell you is that it was a very loud voice.

And I felt like I was in a room with surround sound, because the voice was coming at me from everywhere,

from all around me,

which is what makes me feel like it was the voice of God, because he's everywhere.

And the voice was surrounding me, and it was so loud,

and it said,

I disrupt.

Nobody else disrupts.

No one speaks louder than me.

And the voice was so loud in my dream that I flinched.

Like, I jolted back in my bed, and it woke me up. I just woke up from the dream. And I was kind of stunned, and I was a little scared.

I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna lie.

It was weird. I'd never experienced anything like that before.

So then I sit up in my bed,

and the very first thought that came to my mind was that the Lord was angry because the enemy has been trying to disrupt the plans of his children.

Which brings me to this.

The people who delight in. In evil,

that's what they do.

They disrupt.

They smile as they slander others.

They delight in destruction.

They try to derail what God has designed and ordained.

But make no mistake,

God will not allow the plans that he has for his children to be permanently destroyed.

And now I want to tell you about a situation that arose with a sister in Christ of mine whom I love dearly.

She and I had a disagreement because she grossly misunderstood something that I said,

and then she repeated it to someone else,

who then repeated it to someone else.

And the worst part about all of it was not that it was repeated.

It was the fact that it wasn't even the truth.

Now, let me say this in defense of my friend.

She is going through a lot of her own struggles,

and sometimes when we are under a lot of stress,

things get lost in translation because we're in turmoil.

It's unfortunate, yes.

But if we're being honest,

it has happened to all of us.

The entire situation was a huge misunderstanding resulting from poor communication that led to conclusions that were completely inaccurate.

Now,

obviously,

I was extremely upset.

Eventually,

I told her that I needed time to process everything and that I would get back to her when I was ready.

So later that night, I prayed about It. And when I say I prayed about it, I sat there for well over an hour in prayer with the Lord,

trying to hear what the Holy Spirit had to say about the situation. And I'm really happy that I did.

I'm really happy that I did.

Because I realized that most of my pain didn't come from her.

It came from the fear of what might happen if that inaccurate story reached the wrong ears.

I know my sister in Christ.

I know her beautiful heart.

And it's not full of malice,

but I know others whose hearts are.

I wrestled with the weight of that until the Holy Spirit reminded me that the truth will always prevail.

Maybe not at first,

but eventually it will,

because the light always exposes evil.

So the very next day,

I reached out to my sister to clear the air.

And I'm very happy to say that everything is now okay.

But all of this made me think of Paul's words.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

I'm not saying that the situation itself was evil,

but I felt that evil was trying to infiltrate my friendship.

But I refused, and so did she.

When I reached out, we made amends.

Yes, I was hurt,

but we both rejoiced in the truth of who we are,

sisters in Christ,

who love each other and love the Lord.

The enemy tried to attack our friendship,

but we overcame with the sword of truth and with hearts full of love,

forgiveness,

repentance,

mercy and grace.

It was an absolutely beautiful display of God's love.

When things are going well,

it's easy to say that you love someone.

When you're having coffee and cookies and enjoying casual conversation,

it's a breeze.

You could say, I love you, sister. Give them a hug.

Tell them you'll call them next week and go about your merry way.

But in friendships or romantic relationships,

when you're in a dark time,

love must be the light that guides you.

If it doesn't,

your love is not going to survive.

I mean,

think about it.

That's why marriage vows include for better or for worse,

because love will encounter both.

In relationships,

when you're in a dark time,

love must be the light that guides you.

And let us not forget that Christ covers the relationship when he is at the center.

Love protected my friendship because even though I was hurt,

I trusted her heart.

Love always hopes our friendship not only survived this trying time, but I believe it will thrive in the future because of it.

Love always perseveres because with the Lord,

our sisterhood survived the storm,

and now we're coming to the end of the passage where Paul says,

love never fails.

Pure love,

true love,

strong love is agape love,

which is selfless,

kind,

considerate and thoughtful.

And that is the way our Lord and Savior loves us.

when I was a child,

I talked like a child,

thought like a child,

reasoned like a child.

When I became a man,

I put childish ways behind me.

Those who feel that love has failed are still thinking like children.

As we mature in Christ,

we realize that God knows what we do not know and sees what we cannot see.

There's a good chance that what we thought would be heaven on earth would have turned out to be hell on earth, and he saved us from it.

He is a faithful Father.

Just because we fail to understand his ways doesn't mean he failed us.

Love never fails.

He simply doesn't know how to.

But in order to see love win,

we must persevere.

We must trust the Lord and remain hopeful,

knowing he will protect us from the schemes of the enemy.

We can only persevere when trust and hope fuel our faith.

But make no mistake,

the greatest force behind all of it is love,

as Paul writes.

And now these three faith,

hope,

and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

As children of Christ,

we are sustained by his love because our Lord is love,

love died for us and love came back to life.

The greatest of these is love,

because love never fails and because love never dies.

And now I'd like to ask you a couple of questions.

If you had a recent conflict,

did you rejoice with the truth or did you rehearse the hurt?

What step would align you with truth today?

If you clarified something,

if you confessed something,

if you forgave someone for something,

or if you just blessed someone with something?

Sometimes the blessing is forgiveness.

Number two which of love's four guards do you need most right now?

Do you need it to protect you?

Do you need to build your trust in it?

Do you need to feel your living hope even more than you do right now?

Or do you need love to help you persevere through something that you are struggling to make your way through?

Think about it,

and whichever one it is,

know that you can find it in the Lord.

Go to him in prayer and ask him to reveal it if you're having trouble.

But if you know,

if you truly know which one you need the most,

talk to your Heavenly Father.

Pray through the power of the Holy Spirit, reach out to your Lord and Savior, and put your request before the Lord.

Now, I'd like to pray over you.

Lord Jesus, you are the truth and you are love.

Please cover our hearts and our relationships with your love.

Uproot any lie that we've believed and teach us to rejoice with the truth.

We thank you for your love that never fails.

In the mighty and magnificent name of Jesus,

we pray.

Amen.

If today's message blessed you,

please share it with a friend and follow Born to be a Butterfly so you never miss an episode if you're ready to dive deeper into my story of healing and transformation,

you can get my book From Broken to Butterfly on Amazon.

If you have any questions or want to connect,

Please send me a DM on Instagram at @Born to Be a Butterfly, or you can email me at me@ninapejonasmail.com. You can find the link to my email address in the episode description.

Until next time,

Remember the Lord can turn your wounds into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.