Category: Love is …

In Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus identified the two great commandments – love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself – as the greatest commandments in the Old Testament.  Did I just say Old Testament?  I did, and I said it because Jesus said it.  Jesus listed these as the greatest commandments in “the Law” (understood to be the Old Testament) saying that “the whole Law and the Prophets” (again, the Old Testament) depended on them.

In the New Testament, Jesus introduced a new love emphasis.  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love on another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35).  Three times in these two verses, Jesus repeats the new and radical command, “Love one another”.  And Jesus elevated loving one another as the gold standard by comparing its priority to His love for us.

When we view love’s priorities as competing circles, love God first and love others second, we may defend our lack of loving others in a particular situation with the reasoning that in this case my actions demonstrate that I am loving God more.  The message and model of the New Testament is that we are never to deny love to others on the basis of loving God first.  Our loves are not competing loves, but complementing loves.  Loving God is one big circle and loving our wives, loving our children, loving our fellow believers, and loving our neighbors are part and parcel of the big circle of loving God.  The apostle John, for example, equates loving God and loving others at the highest level in his epistle.  As to love’s priorities, John writes that we demonstrate our love for God who we cannot see by how we love our brothers and sisters who we can see.

Let me give you one example of how this works in practice.  In Ephesians chapter 5, Paul encourages husbands to, “Love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for it” (Eph 5:25).  When we add in, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13), we find that we are to love our wives with the greatest love possible.  Our wives do not take second place to loving God.

The challenge, for ministers and laymen alike, is to not put our love of ministry – whatever God has given us to do to serve His body – above our love for our wives and I believe by extension our families as well by some expectation that leaving them behind is putting God first.  Ministers gaining their congregation’s admiration while loosing their family’s is a well-worn tale.  It shouldn’t be that way.

Before I set up shop to prepare a Sunday School lesson or write a blog post, I often ask Rhonda, “Will you be lonely if I go off and …?”  It is my way of saying, “Do you need anything from me right now before I disappear into the study?”  It is, in a small way, an expression of my love.

In I Peter chapter 3, the apostle starts the chapter off with an admonition to wives on how to treat their husbands with respect.  Turning to the husbands in verse 7, Peter writes, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered” (I Pet 3:7).  Do you want to be a prayer warrior?  You can pray in Jesus’ name, stare down the devil, exercise great faith, or whatever you want, but the effectiveness of your prayers may come down to the simple question, “Are you treating your wife in an understanding way?”  Or put another way, “Are you loving your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for it?”

When you are doing your seminary homework and you hear the dishes rattling around in the kitchen, the most spiritual thing you could do at that moment might be to go downstairs and help your wife with the dishes.  When you would like to start the day with focused prayer and see a lunch that still needs packed for your grade-schooler, the most spiritual exercise might be to pitch in and finish the job.  In the final analysis, loving your wife does not compete with your spirituality, loving your wife completes your spirituality.  Putting down your Bible and filling the dishwasher might be the clearest expression of your love for God today!

When we embrace the gospel message of Jesus Christ, one of the changes we experience, whether rapidly or gradually, is that we are no longer motivated by selfish ambition, by “what’s in it for me.”  We have a new motivation for our actions.

In the first chapter of I Peter, the apostle goes to great length to explain our inheritance in Christ.  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Pet 1:3-4).

Peter continues in this chapter with two actions that should naturally follow when we recognize the spectactularness of our salvation.  Obedience and love.  “Therefore [based on what I just said about so great a salvation]…as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior” (I Pet 1:14-15).  And, “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart” (I Pet 1:22).  Obedience and love.

It is interesting that Peter follows verse 22 with the reason we are even able to love.  “For you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God” (I Pet 1:23).  God’s imperishable seed inside empowers us to love fervently.

If our goal for living the Christian life is to keep a set of rules or attain a certain level of character qualities, the road will grow stale and the motivation will fade away.  If, on the other hand, our goal is to love from a pure heart, our motivation and enthusiasm will grow as our love grows.

Think about this progression with me and the verses that go with it.

• My ultimate goal, the greatest commandment in the New Testament, is to love one another.  (See Jn 13:34, Jn 15:12, Jn 15:17, Rom 12:10, Rom 13:8, I Thess 3:12, I Thess 4:9, II Thess 1:3, I Pet 1:22, I Pet 4:8, I Jn 3:11, I Jn 3:23, I Jn 4:7, I Jn 4:11, I Jn 4:12, II Jn 1:5.)
• I love others by serving them.  “Through love, serve one another” (Gal 5:13).
• A clean vessel is a vessel fit for service.  “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from these things [the bad stuff], he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” (II Tim 2:21).
• I cleanse myself by obeying God’s commands, an obedience that comes from my love motivation.  “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love” (Jn 15:10).
• Love is our motivation to do the right thing.

The apostle Paul adds an additional dimension to our love motivation in II Corinthians 5:14, “For the love of Christ controls us.”  The idea of being “controlled” or “constrained” (KJV) by love is more than just being motivated by it.  As my friend Greg Despres points out, the word picture in this verse is like a rushing river being controlled or constrained by its banks.  Its the idea of being controlled or constrained by a crowd as we all press into an arena for a sporting event.  Faced with this “control”, it only makes sense to go with the flow.  Our love is going with the flow of who Christ indwells us to be.  Let your pride and selfish ambition fall to the wayside and go with the flow of Christ’s love filling you and overflowing in service to others.  Go with the flow!

When our younger children were teenagers, I asked them one evening, “Do you think we have a lot of rules in our home?”  They looked at each other and finally Bethany answered for the group, “Well, we seem to really just have one big rule:  Do whatever Mom and Dad say.”  It was an interesting answer and I immediately wondered how they would always discern – following the one big rule idea – what Mom and Dad would say in any given situation.

Years later, I realized what Bethany was saying.  The idea of children obeying their parents as one big rule is both biblical and practical, and on the practical side it looks like this.  One of our core values as parents was to establish a relationship with our children.  A relationship based on love and mutual respect.  A relationship based on knowing and being known.  Rhonda and I asked a lot of questions at our house to learn what life looked like from our children’s point of view.  Did this somehow diminish our authority?  I don’t think so.  Our authority just became more grounded in our relationship than in structures of control.

So because we allowed ourselves to be known by our children, it wasn’t much of a stretch for them to know what Mom and Dad were thinking in any given situation.  So even if we didn’t address a particular issue – we did discuss many situations and temptations beforehand – our children basically knew what Mom or Dad would say.  Hence, because we knew and were known by our kids, the one big rule of doing whatever Mom and Dad said was not arbitrary or dangerous.  Their obedience was based on a love relationship.

It is the same idea with our Lord.  When you know the Lord as well as we know our own children or parents, we know what God is thinking.  We know what He expects.  We know what kind of things please Him.  We don’t need to know a list of rules because we know the rule-maker.  And the more time we spend learning the rule-maker’s ways, the more we learn His heart.  His ways are no longer so distant that they cannot be known.  God has chosen to make Himself known to those who seek a relationship with Him.  Since our obedience flows from this love relationship, His commandments are not burdensome, but life-giving.  And best of all, they draw us closer to the heart of God.

Another way we “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires” is to unleash the love God has put into our new hearts.  “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (I Jn 5:3).  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15).  As children of the Heavenly Father, we keep His commandments – “crucifying the flesh” – out of a love relationship with the Godhead.

I don’t know what your childhood was like, but I have a distinct memory of being motivated to obey my parents out of a love relationship.  That is, I did not want to disappoint them or abuse the trust they put in me.  As we grow up, we transfer that “obedience out of love” to our relationship with God.  And this love relationship, this ability to love God as we should, comes from God Himself as one of the provisions of the New Covenant.  So not only does God give us the resurrection power to resist temptation, but He gives us the desire to do so as well through our love relationship with Him.

Another way love affects our response to temptation is in the manifestation of the love God has given us for each other.  For example, I will not correct my children out of anger – a deed of the flesh – if my motivation is to deepen my love relationship with them.  I will treat my wife with honor and respect even in times of disagreement because I love her.  I will not dismiss personalities different than my own if I am controlled by love.  My moral choices, when motivated by love, will be influenced by how my choices affect others.  My choices will be governed by a desire to enhance the love relationships God has brought into my life; both close familial and friend relationships as well as more casual acquaintances in the body.

A good measure of our level of love motivation is our attitude in carrying out Christ’s commands.  Hospitality is not really hospitality if it is done reluctantly.  Generosity is not really generosity if giving is done begrudgingly.  “God loves a cheerful giver” (II Cor 9:7), and I think it is safe to say, based on many scriptures, that God loves a cheerful obeyer in all areas.  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” (Phil 4:4).  Good cheer and joy will be the result of “crucifying the flesh” out of a love motivation.

Finally, embracing and experiencing the love of God takes the power out of the sin of fear and worry.  On the large scale, the twenty-four hour news cycle supplies us with more than enough to worry about.  As author Marilynne Robinson has observed, “We’re stuck in psycho-emotional bomb shelters.”  Closer to home, intimate knowledge of our family and friends situations often give us ample opportunity to worry.  I know I specifically worry about what my children’s future will hold.  But God’s love casts out fear.  Resting in God’s love, trusting that any future issue will have passed through His loving hands, helps quiet the urge to worry when the temptation comes.

“And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.  God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (I Jn 4:16).  May you experience the abiding love of God today!