In my quest to understand Biblical Love better, the issue of pride/humility has come up a great deal and it is little wonder given that it is the core of Love. There were two specific times my own pride was challenged to uncomfortable levels...let me just give you the quick version so that you can see what I am talking about, as in degree of humility we are asked to have in our becoming Christ like.
One Sat. night, I was sick in bed with lung spasms. (painful, draining, etc.) In fact, when I have lung spasms, I try not to move at all. Got a phone call from someone I have been mentoring for a couple of years now. Her daughter who had been wayward, wanted to come to church and sit with us. Now I wasn't going to go to church because of the lung spasms, but humility/Love puts that teen girls needs above my own, so the challenge for humility/pride was whether or not I was going to put myself through the agony of going so she felt comfortable with someone to sit with, or whether I was going to stay home, sick in bed. Most of us make excuses for our pride especially when it comes to things like food or health. Our own son faced this one day when he shared all that he had with a homeless kid and ended up not eating for 3 days because this kid needed food, needed help, needed Love. There can be NO excuses if our comparison is the humility of Christ.
Another time was when someone said something very hurtful and damaging to me. I was angry with a righteous anger. What was said was way out of line, in fact, it isn't the first time something like that has happened. When people spread rumors, gossip, slander, lies about you, especially when they bring up memories of the abuse you have been asked to live through, anger can prevail and it is an anger that is shared by God. But, humility dictates, that angry with a righteous anger or not, we share their pain before we even think about delving into our own, licking our wounds like the abused. Consider Christ, if anyone had a right to righteous anger, to licking His own wounds before Loving others, if anyone had the right to take care of Himself before Loving with the humility that marked His call to all people, it was Christ. But what did He do instead? He prayed that His will would become the will of the Father, then willingly gave His life that we, the object of God's wrath and anger, might live. That is the humility we are called to have when we are commanded to Love. It's a humility that is totally foreign to man, who is taught from birth to "look out for number one". Maybe, that is why Gal. tells us that Love is a fruit of the Spirit and not a fruit of man?