03/18/2019
What is the litmus test for our faith in God? Is there one thing that we can use when looking at someone which will tell us the truth about their faith, and reveal the status of their relationship with our Heavenly Father? The answer is yes, and that test is for the presence of their love... a love for each of their brothers. If someone were to dip a test strip into you how would they find you; positive, or negative for love?
“And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
1 John 4:21 ESV
The key words in this verse are love, and must. John is not saying that we should love one another, he says that we MUST love each other. You might be thinking that you love this one, but can’t possibly love that one, yet if you feel this way then you are using your own ability to love. By that I mean that you are loving with the meager heart of a man, the imperfect love of a fallen creature, but if we love with the love that God gives us it perfects us.
“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 ESV
When we find ourselves lacking in love we can easily become disappointed, and think that we might never measure up. We ask ourselves how we can possibly love so completely. Then in our frustration we ask “How can I possibly come to love as God expects?” You can love this way because our Father loved us enough to send His Son for us... to bring us His love in Jesus and to reconcile us to Himself. We receive God’s love in a magnificent way... in the divinely aromatic and delicious soup of Love mixed equally with Sacrifice. We can’t make this meal... it is given to us.
“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 ESV
So by partaking of this delightful soup we receive life; by accepting each spoon full into ourselves we are receiving the love of God, and being perfected in it. This gift of a meal to us, while we are spiritually starving, begins its transformative work in us, and allows us to grow strong enough to love one another. By virtue of this ingestion of divine love, and sacrifice, God comes to dwell in us.
“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 ESV
There is no separation between Jesus and God’s Love. If you confess your faith in Jesus Christ, but don’t exhibit the love of God, then you have not really come to know Jesus. You might know of Him, but to accept Him into your heart you must take Him on the same spoon with God’s love.
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
1 John 4:15-16 ESV
I love the movie “Fiddler on the Roof”, and I especially like one particular moment in it. In this scene Tevye the father and husband of the family asks his wife Golde if she loves him. You see, they were the product of an arranged marriage, and had lived as husband and wife by custom and obligation before God, they had a home and four grown daughters, but now Tevye wants to know if they have more... he wants to know if his wife loves him. By asking this it is obvious that Tevye loves Golde, and by her inability to immediately say “YES” it is apparent that she was asking herself a question she had never allowed herself face before.
Sometimes in our own faith God asks us “Do you love me?” When He does what will you say? Will you spout out an answer without thinking, will you have already come to a conclusion and be ready to answer, or will you need to consider it for a moment like Golde did. God, who knows our heart doesn’t want us to give Him an answer because we think that is what He wants to hear; He wants us to be certain in our answer, and to pause if necessary. Sometimes we come to God through logic, and serve Him out of custom and obligation... but if that is all we have then we don’t really have the true and full relationship... we don’t feel His heart to the extent that He feels ours.
Fortunately for Tevye, Golde realizes that she does love him, and tells him as much. In this moment of great joy, their marriage is truly consummated! Despite the previously successful physical nature of it, the relationship was made complete by a profession of love!
God loves us first, and He asks us through His Son Jesus Christ if we love Him. We can accept the offering of love, or we can reject it, but we can’t take one without the other... we can’t take Jesus and not love God, and once we accept the love we must accept the Son. A marriage between two people is not complete without love, and neither is our spiritual relationship. So what happens when a relationship is based on God’s love?... it bleeds out into all those who come in contact with it. The love of a couple lights up all those around them in shared love, and the love that flows from our relationship with God feeds the love we feel for all those around us as well. So this is the test... do we love our brother?
“If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
1 John 4:20-21 ESV
Love is the litmus test! It allows us to dip a small piece of paper into ourselves and by this one seemingly insignificant strip determine the presence and depth of our spiritual relationship with God. The answer to our question regarding whether we can love our brothers is a resounding “YES!” Love... has God’s love spread throughout us by our acceptance of Jesus? Do we love our brothers as He has commanded us? What is your answer Golde? After all these years what is your answer to Tevye?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your love, and for your Son Jesus Christ who you sent to deliver it to me. I thank you for the divine soup of love and sacrifice that has made you, Jesus, and me, of one abode. I thank you for the amazing joy in our relationship that allows me to love my brothers, and to show, whenever I am tested, that your love rests within me. Help me Holy Father to love you more each day. Help those who have professed a faith in You and Jesus, but not announced their love, to one day realize that over time they too have come to love you. Show them Gracious Father that your love overcomes all... even their fear of commitment. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God, and greater is your love than any that is solely of man. Perfect me by your love Father, and by the grace that flows through Jesus Christ who is the living vessel of sacrifice, and your love. Praised be your name Father, for by your love, and the grace that flows through Jesus, I am saved, and your eternal child... steeped in brotherly love.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
1 John 4:7 ESV
Rich Forbes