How would you define love? How would you define hate? While love for our neighbor seems to be the rallying cry of our times, we are greatly divided by our definitions of love. Scripture tells us God is love, and He defines love in His Word. As followers of Christ, it is important that we are abiding in God’s love and rejecting false definitions of love.
It seemed fitting to talk about love since this past Saturday was Valentine’s Day. It also seemed fitting because the definition of love has become very muddied by the unbelieving world. Last week during the Super Bowl Halftime Show we saw and heard (if you know Spanish) the affirmation of sin while the words, the only thing more powerful than hate is love, shown behind performers. The saying itself isn’t wrong.
It might seem encouraging to see so many embracing the command of God to love our neighbor as ourselves. However, the problem lies with the world seeking to define what it looks like to love others when God has already defined it. There is a part one to this command and it is to love God with your everything. This means surrendering to what He says is true, good, right, and love. Only then can you truly love others as God defines it. Otherwise, we claim to love others in ways that do not honor God, and instead are what God defines as hate. As followers of Christ, we should look to God to define love and not the unbelieving world around us.
Love The Lord Your God
And he said to him, “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 first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
It’s common to hear others say, love your neighbor as yourself. However, it is less common to hear, love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first part of the Great Commandment, and it is what equips us to love others. Attempting to love others apart from God creates a self-centered, sinful love that doesn’t honor God. Want to love others well? Start with your devotion to God. Submitting your heart, soul, mind, and all of your being to Him is how you are equipped to love others. This is always step one.
As I mentioned in Anchored to Truth, Lesson 4: The Law, when Jesus makes the statement above He is referring to the Ten Commandments because they are summarized by loving God and loving your neighbor. If you obey God’s law, you will love God and those around you. Jesus gives an example of this in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). He shows that the love for others that comes from loving God first is sacrificial and impartial. Lately, it has become very popular for people to villainize others who don’t agree with them and use it as an excuse to hate them and wish them harm. Don’t fall into this temptation. This is not love, and it is not from God.
What Is Love
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
I believe some of the most convicting words in Scripture come from these verses in 1 Corinthians. If you are married or a parent, consider whether you always love your spouse or children this way. I’ll admit I often struggle with the first command of patience. In these verses, we see that love isn’t just a feeling. Love at its fullness is seen through our actions. We can probably all agree on this, but do we agree on what actions are loving and which ones are not?
Right in the middle of these verses we see that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. This means that love does not rejoice in my sin or anyone else’s sin. Love rejoices in submitting to truth. Jesus says that God’s Word is truth (John 17:17). Therefore, rejecting God’s Word, God’s design, and ignoring, or worse celebrating, sin is never love. It’s never out of love for God and never out of love for others. If we know the value of God’s Word and His design then it is unloving to not encourage others to surrender to it. And if we know the dangers of sin then it is unloving to not warn others to reject it.
Our Greatest Example
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:9-10
Once I heard someone refer to God’s Word as a Love Letter. In a way it kind of is. Think about it. God, Creator of everything, reveals Himself to His creation through His written Word. Not because He had to, but one might argue, because He loved us enough to. In His written Word we see that we rejected Him, over and over again, and yet He still pursues us, over and over again. We read that we have sinned against Him and our sin has separated us from Him. Instead of pouring His wrath out on us, He takes the wrath Himself and makes a way for us to sin no more and once again be in fellowship with Him. All of this because He so loved us (John 3:16). That’s the best love letter I’ve ever received.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:11-12
Jesus through His life and His teaching shows us that we love God and love others by abiding in God and His Word (John 14:15). While we don’t work for our salvation, we are obedient out of our love for the God who gave it to us freely. Therefore, we can not love God, love others, and love what God calls sin. We can not love God, love others, and reject truth. To truly love God and love others, we must tell others about the salvation available to them through Jesus Christ. We must make disciples, and we must build His church. Yes, there are many times when we love others by providing for their physical needs. However, to truly love God and love others, we should always be concerned for other’s need for salvation and sanctification.
Abiding in God
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:7-8
Followers of Christ, reject the world’s definition of love. Remember that love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but with truth. Therefore, seek Christ’s righteousness, put to death sin, and reject lies. Seek to love God with everything you have through prayer and the study of His Word. Then He will equip you to love others as He defines it.
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