THE CRITICAL ELEMENT
Issue #8 20-October, 1990
"'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the great
and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love
your neighbor as yourself,'" (Matthew 22:37-39).
I have already written to you about loving God in issue #4.
As you will recall, I wrote you about how learning to love God
because of who He is has brought me the blessing of being able to
love others. I think Christ was trying to relay this thought to
us when He said this phrase as He did. He is saying focus your
whole person, your whole intellect on the service and worship and
person of God before anything else. Then your life will be
filled with the love of God which will literally spill out onto
those around you. Perhaps I'm reading a bit much into this one
verse, but when you look at John 14:35 it makes sense. That
verse says, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples,
if you have love for one another." It is as if Christ is saying
if you follow Me, you will love Me, and that love will flow out
of you.
Perhaps it would be a little better to look at this not as
our love for God overflowing to others, but God's love flowing
out of us. I really believe that on our own, out of our own
capacity we are incapable of loving the way Christ directed us.
It can only be the love of God working in our lives that can
empower us and motivate us to love another. But what is the love
of God and how is it manifested in and through our lives?
We normally think of the love of God being exemplified
through the sending and martyring of His only Son. This is
certainly a true statement. However I challenge you to think of
God's love on another level for a moment. 1 John 2:5 states,
"...whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been
perfected." 1 John 5:3 goes further by saying that keeping God's
commandments is the love of God. What I'm trying to say here is
that the love of God did not stop at our salvation. He continues
to show us His love by convicting us of our sinfulness and bring
ing us to a point where we can see just how sinful we all are.
It doesn't just stop there either, God also shows us His con
stant, unfailing love by answering our prayers, encouraging us
daily, teaching us new lessons, and protecting us from needless
harm. God's love is how He communicates to us moment by moment.
By communication I mean a two way street. I believe that
all of us realize how seldom God communicates to us in this way
when we are not spending time with Him. Does God answer our
prayers when we do not take time to pray? Does He encourage us
and protect us when we are spending our time wallowing in sin?
This is where He must convict us and show us how far off the
beaten path we really are. This is how the love of God is made
manifest in our lives. But the question still remains. How does
God express this love to others through us?
Certainly with the statement of the Great Commission, we
have been made God's mouthpieces throughout the world. So the
question is relevant. First of all, let's assume for now that
"others" means only other Christians. John 14:34 states, "A new
commandment I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved
you, so you must love on another." Christ is saying to love each
other just as He loves us. Let's consider how Christ showed His
love during His earthly ministry. Did He ever say "I can't help
you right now; I don't have time?" Was there ever a time when
Christ refused to heal or comfort or convict? When He was up on
the cross do you even think He had second doubts about laying
down His life? Actually that was only the final step of an
entire lifetime of presenting His life and body as a sacrifice.
"We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren," (1 John
3:16). This is how we are to manifest the love of God to the
Christians around us. By sacrificing our time and our sympathy,
for the brothers (and sisters, of course). Let us not fail to
uplift, pray for, and convict those around us who seek the Lord.
Now let's move on and cover how God wants us to love those
around us who do not know Him. Compassion, mercy, and love,
these are the three things we must have when reaching our to the
unbelieving. This can only come by drawing closer to the person
of God and allowing Him to change us. For, as I said before, it
is not we who can reach out and truly love someone, but God
through us. As we grow closer to God, we begin to see non-
believers as God sees them. God does not have favorites. There
isn't one of mankind that Christ would not have died for.
From God's perspective it is only how He can look upon us that
separates the Christian from the non-Christian - whether He can
look through the cleansing of Jesus' shed blood or not.
This is the way that we should reach out to those around us.
It is with the constant, unchanging, compassionate, uncompromis
ing, and unconditional love which Christ has shown and continues
to show us. It isn't just an action, it is a way of life. It
isn't something that can be taken lightly either, for it is
written, "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but
with actions and in truth," (1 John 3:18).
My brothers and sisters, I love you all. This week, this
month, this life, let us focus our energies on loving God and as
we become more like Him, learning to love others just like He
does. May we let the love of God show through in everything we
do.
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