How seriously do we take the command to love one another? We seem to think rather highly of the command to "love the Lord your God." It flows easily from our tongues to say that we "love Jesus." But what about each other? What does it mean to love? In 1 Corinthians 13*, the apostle Paul describes love in this way: "Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."
The old song says “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Brothers and sisters if our love isn’t visible, how will anyone ever know who Jesus is? It’s all about love. God is love. In the same passage of scripture referenced above, Paul also writes: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” All of our preaching and teaching, evangelizing and witnessing means nothing if it is not grounded in love. All of our wisdom and debating skills are for naught if our primary focus is not love. Imagine what would happen if world were to see Jesus for who He really is. We go to church on Sundays and revel in the fact that God loves us and then we do life Monday through Saturday without bothering to share that amazing truth with the people around us. What if people knew that God doesn’t hate them for their sin, but that He loves them and longs for them to come home? What if they knew that God suffers long and is kind; that He does not envy and does not parade Himself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, that He does not seek His own, that He is not provoked. He thinks no evil. He does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; that He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and that He never fails. Is this the picture of God we portray to the world? Is this the picture we portray to each other?
What the world needs more than anything is the love of God. More than any anecdote or well thought out explanation of the Gospel, people need to know about the unfailing love of God expressed through His gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. The center of the message of truth is the message of love. This is not a message to be delivered only to those who don’t know Jesus and neglected with those already in the Kingdom of God. We all need to know that we are deeply and immeasurably loved by the Creator of the Universe. Our faith runs the risk of becoming burdensome and completely devoid of joy when we lose the message of the love of God. Our journey with Him is not an attempt to maintain a set of laws or even to hold to a set of practices. “Good practices” flow naturally from a healthy relationship with our Father. We don’t force ourselves to talk a good a friend, neither should we need to force ourselves to pray to a God with whom we have genuine relationship. Communion with Him naturally becomes a part of life.
Furthermore, if we are to call ourselves “followers of Jesus,” or whichever term you prefer, should that not imply that we are trying to live like him? We are the imago dei or “image of God” (Genesis 1:26). That means that we should reflect his nature. If God in his very essence is love, what must that mean for us?
As I go further along in my relationship with God, I realize more and more how important it is to know that we are loved- by God and by our family in Christ. Understanding that I am loved by God is constant struggle for me. It’s much easier for me to receive the love of those I can see. That love has been life-changing for me. I lived a very lonely life before finding community that offered genuine love. And it’s been, in part, those relationships that have helped me start to understand that God loves me infinitely more than any of them ever could.
Simply put, friends, love is essential. Love is the key to genuine relationships, to healing, and ultimately to discovering the joy and freedom in a life spent following after Jesus. Let us share it joyfully with our very broken world.
“Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Mattthew 22:35-40
