Love like God loves…

In a TV show, a woman was asked why she loved a certain man. She said, “Because he makes me happy.” I’ve been married 64 years and in that time, the man I love sometimes makes me happy and sometimes I’ve wanted to strangle him, but that too is not a description of love, at least not the way that God loves.

The gospel says we are not saved by what we do. Even the goodness of the most generous person cannot earn salvation. God’s love is not about the behavior of those He loves; it is about who God is, a God who sacrificed His Son that we might be forgiven and have eternal life. 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

However, there are some Bible passages that are worded as if our behavior is a condition of being saved. This is one of them:

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:35–36)

The last line clearly implies that Jesus is treating His hearers as God’s children. God is their Father, they are his children — so they should be merciful because they have a Father who has mercy and who will treat them (and others) mercifully. But what about the words, “Love your enemies … and you will be sons of the Most High”? 

This sounds like loving your enemies is the condition for being the sons of God rather than the result. It’s as if Jesus says, on the one hand: “Love your enemies because God is your Father,” and on the other: “Love your enemies in order that God might be your Father.”

Another passage says this: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (John 15:8) This translation helps those confused by the one in Luke. Basically it says that I “become” a disciple in the sense of living out what I already am, by my actions proving to others that I am a disciple of Christ. Piper puts it this way: “When you act this way, you prove to be chips off the Old Block.” This is the way my Father is, so I show I am born of God and have his nature. I can love like He loves. 

James also writes about the same thing: 

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

Today’s test is a love test. Am I willing to give up what I want to do, or ignore the demands of my to-do list in order to show love to someone by putting time and effort into meeting their needs? The answer to that is in realizing that showing love to sinners is what God wanted to do. It was at the top of His to-do list. He had nothing else more important on His agenda. For me, this is the difference between walking in His Spirit and living according to the flesh. Loving Him and loving others takes priority over all others ‘I-wants’ as I am filled with His Spirit.

PRAY: Jesus, I confess that today I wanted to do other things instead of giving up my time and effort to show love to others in need. Ignore such selfishness and fill me with Your Spirit that I might not only reveal the fact that my heart belongs to You, but that You are glorified by my actions.