"Let love be genuine." Part 2.

Part 1 of "Let love be genuine."

There's only so many ways you can say the same thing, hoping for change. There's only so much you can do to breed unity and brotherly affection amongst the Body of Christ. There's only so much one-sided effort you can put in to your friendships before you can say your options are exhausted. 

But have we really given to the fullest extent?

We often fool ourselves into thinking we've done much more than we have. Thoughts are not actions. Complaints are not changes. Hearing the Word and agreeing with it does not make you obedient to it. 

But, I am often stuck there. I am of those about whom God said, "These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me" (Isaiah 29:13). But, "dear children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18).

I've been singing songs about the world knowing us by our love since preschool. In high school, the Lord directed me to Romans 15:4-6 to convict me of personal and corporate sin and to encourage change. But I'm not sure I fully understood the importance of unity and the purpose of the love that comes from knowing God.

Our world today is obsessed with "love." From the overtly sensual, self-seeking to the more charitable views, love has become ubiquitous in American society. 

But what is the difference in Christian love that is to cause that society to look at the Church and say, "Look how they love one another" (Tertullian). Or rather, what is supposed to be the difference? What type of love did Christ command when He said all men would recognize His disciples by it?

1 John 4 tells us that the love we are to show one another is the love God showed for us in sending His Son, Who was willingly sent to die on the cross to atone for someone else's sins against His Father, our Judge. 

John continues to say what the commanded love is not: "that we loved Him." How is this so? Why is the love with which we love God not sufficient? Because that love is dependent on His first loving us. This harps on Christ's former command to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Our love for God is not the commanded love because it begins and ends with the actions of another (and because it has a beginning and an ending at all). It is conditional. "We love because He first loved us." 

How, then, does this differ from the world's love? "If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even [unbelievers] do the same?" (Matthew 5:43-48).

No, God's love is one that contradicts everything we are told to stand for today-- defiant independence, tending to our needs first, insisting people earn our respect. This seems to be hardwired into us, really. We love those who love us and hate those who hate us. But the command is to love those who hate us, even those who actively seek our hurt and ruin, because that is what God did with us, that is Who "God is" (1 John 4:8). 

Unfortunately for us, this, like all the other commands in the Bible, is inherently impossible. We do not have the ability to carry it out. We may have times of compliance, but it is not possible to "be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." Perfect denotes an absolute; the complete fulfillment of a command is the eternal obedience to it. Yet "those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:8).

That's where this commanded love steps in: from God in Christ Jesus, Who was sent to save us from our "filthy rags," to raise us from death and slavery to sin, and to guide us by the Holy Spirit, Who will "equip [us] with everything good, that [we] may do His will, working in [us] that which is pleasing in His sight" (Hebrews 13:21). Only "by grace, through faith" (Ephesians 2:8) in Christ's obedience on our behalf can we ourselves be made like Him.

So back to the original question: In what manner is the love that believers are to show one another so different from the love in the world, that they would see us and know we've experienced something of another spiritual realm?

1. Difference of focus. Our minds must be set steadily on this one reality: "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Believer, you were an enemy of God when He looked upon you, opened your eyes, unstopped your ears, and gave you understanding and life through His Son. God poured out grace upon those who reviled Him with everything they did. That is the love we are told to model, and we can only do it by constantly reminding ourselves to seek the strength of the One Whose love is never exhausted.

2. Difference of effort. People are often looked up to today when they use their excess for the betterment of others. But God commands more. Those commended by the Lord Jesus were not those who "contributed out of their abundance", but the widow who "put in everything she had, all she had to live on" (Mark 12:44). We cannot give up when we realize we have to make sacrifices. We must be willing to fulfill needs even if it costs us more time, effort, and resources than we think we can spare. Sometimes what is needed is a painful yet cathartic conversation with someone genuinely listening, praying. We must be willing to "pour ourselves out" (Isaiah 58), "seeking first His Kingdom and righteousness," trusting that "our Heavenly Father knows what we need" (Matthew 6:33), and that "He cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). "You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, 'It is hopeless'; you found new life for your strength" in the cry of the Christ from the cross: "It is finished" (Isaiah 57:10; John 19:30). 

3. Difference in goals. "Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor" "for his good, to build him up", "so that they may be saved" (1 Corinthians 10:24; Romans 15:2; 1 Corinthians 10:33). Our goal is not the warm feeling we get when someone thanks us or when we see them rejoicing. Our goal is not to make others happy or comfortable. Our goal is not to flatter, to speak comforting words at the expense of acknowledgement and repentance of sin. Our goal is not to "restore people’s hope in mankind." There is one Hope, and it is not us, and it is not our charity. Our goal is to be obedient and then be forgotten-- to "grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

The actions of both worldly and Godly love often look similar: the feeding of the hungry, the fight for justice, the caring for orphans. So what is the difference? It is simple and yet unthinkable. The difference is forgiving as we've been forgiven: completely, restoratively, eternally. The difference is putting others before ourselves (Romans 12:10), treating others as we want to be treated (Matthew 7:12) regardless of how they treat us. 

Truly the difference is God Himself. Let "all your ways acknowledge Him" (Proverbs 3:6).