CHRISTIAN LOVE

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:11

If two different men, sacrifice their plans for a Saturday afternoon, in response to their respective daughters’ request to take them to the park, are both of them showing love? [If all observable factors are the same and the only difference is that one man is a believer, and the other is not.] The correct answer is… “Yes.”

If the believing man is seeking to love his daughter, because he knows he is doing the will of God, his display of love is honoring to the Lord; his goal is to please God. Whereas the unbeliever has no love in his heart for God and thus lacks the vertical dimension, which translates to a different quality of love. His love will be either done to please his daughter or ultimately himself.

In addition, the believer is to love his daughter out of the overflow of God’s incredible love for him (Romans 5:5; 1 John 4:11-12). The unbeliever is only able to love out of his sinful humanness. You could think of the difference of drinking water from a well that never runs dry (God’s love), as compared to the water from a dirty cistern (human love). 

As believers it can be easy to love in the same way as unbelievers do. But we must continue to reflect and meditate on God’s incredible love for us; to walk in the Spirit and not carry out the desires of the flesh. The key is to find our satisfaction in God’s incredible love for us. As we are overwhelmed by God’s amazing love for us, we are able to love those around us with the love that is being poured out of our hearts.

Joshua Steiner