My last devotion was on about how Law and Love are intertwined in God’s way of thinking. I want to share some more thoughts on that today.

 

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. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.   1 John 4:7-12

God didn’t say, “I love you so the Law doesn’t matter.” Instead, He said that His love led Him to send Jesus to keep all the law for us and then take our place in punishment as “the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  Jesus did what only He could do: live a perfect life and pay for our sins. And in the process, He was showing us what love is all about. Since God so loved us, we ought to love Him first and foremost. We also ought to love one another.

A big part of the message to the Pharisees in Jesus’ day was that God’s emphasis is not about how well we keep the rules. That was the mindset of the Pharisees. They had a checklist of laws and rules and regulations that they developed from their study of the Old Testament. They thought that if they kept all those rules that God would love them. But they had it backwards. God already loved them. He wanted them to obey Him for their own good. Obedience to God and His Laws is not in order to be saved, but because you know you have been saved by what Jesus did for you.

This message needs to be shared still today because we all have some Pharisee in us. So let me say it this way: Your behavior does not make you a Christian. Faith in what Jesus did through His life and death and resurrection makes you a Christian. And when you believe in Jesus and know His love, your behavior will change as a result of your faith.

What does that look like? It is really very simple. We need to move from saying that we love everyone in general to showing God’s love to individuals. It happens in everyday encounters and interactions with others, and not just the people you know.

• When someone is rude to you, will you respond in kind, or will you show the kind of love God has shown you in Christ?
• When you see someone is upset, will you try to ignore them and pass by on the other side, or will you offer an encouraging word and offer to pray with him or her?
• When you see that car broken down on the side of the road, will you zip past like everyone else in hurry to get somewhere, or will you try to help in whatever way you can?

Something I have discovered in my life is that the most effective way to show God’s love in this world is not through big events and grand gestures. It is through one on one encounters with those people you meet throughout the course of your day.

Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. As those who know and have experienced the love of God in Christ, we understand that Jesus is telling us how to respond to His love that saved us from sin and death. You and I live in the conviction that our sin has been forgiven and we will spend the rest of eternity with our Lord. Therefore, as a result of and in response to the Love God has already shown you, love God and love your neighbor. What will that look like in your life?