Pastor's Desk
June 11 , 2006
THE PROOF OF our love for God is in the demonstration of our love for fellow human beings. The logic of scripture is clear: We love God because he first loved us. How can we say we love God whom we cannot see and at the same time hate our brother who is visible and whom God also loves? “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:7-11).” I imagine most Christians understand this.
The greater challenge is to understand what loving one another looks like on a day to day basis. The words of Jesus that have become known as the golden rule help point us in the right direction: “Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31).” This is a very practical outworking of loving one another, loving our neighbors and loving our enemies. It is very natural to look out for our own needs, interests, and security. We were created with an instinct to preserve ourselves and to arrange our lives so that we are as comfortable as possible. There is nothing wrong with doing that as long as we also have an eye and a heart to do the same for others. If we only look out for ourselves without regard for others, that is being selfish. Our love for God and others moves us in a different direction. Jesus himself was the supreme of example of someone who had a loving, selfless attitude. “Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,but made himself nothing…” (Philippians 2:4-7) Ultimately he gave his life for us so that we would have a new life filled with hope. It cost him something but since he was not looking out for his own interests he did not consider the cost too great.
In the same way as we live our lives in community with others we will do well to let the sacrificial love of God within us motivate us to be generous with our resources, our time and ourselves. Let us discover in an increasing way how with God’s help we can make a difference in our neighborhood, city, nation and world as we demonstrate his love in practical ways.
**********
“Love is not a special way of feeling. Instead it is the divine way of relating to others and to oneself that moves through every dimension of our being and begins to restructure our world for good (Dallas Willard).”
********
The entire law is summed up in a single command:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
This page was last updated on Friday, June 9, 2006