Word of Encouragement (9/1/2021)
Let’s continue our reflection on Paul’s prayer in Phlm. 1:4-7: “I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Yesterday, we started talking about the relationship between having faith in God and loving our fellow saints. Let’s dwell on it some more today.
We said that to believe in God is to love Him because He is worthy of our love. We can also say that to believe in God is to love others, especially our fellow saints. Why? Because God, who demands that we love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, also demands that we love our neighbors as ourselves. We don’t just believe; we always believe something or someone. There is content to what we believe. But we cannot pick and choose what we believe about God according to our preference and convenience. It is only right that we believe in God as He is—not as He is in Himself as an infinite and transcendent God, who is beyond the grasp of our finite mind to know, but as much as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word for our faith and life. If we believe in God for who He is according to His self-revelation in the Bible, we must love our neighbors as ourselves. And if we should love others because God, whom we believe, commands us so, then there can be no ifs, ands, and buts about it.
Our faith in God tells us not only that we ought to love our neighbors but also how we ought to love them. Only God can dictate how we ought to love others because He made us according to His wisdom and purpose. He knows that we need love to live and thrive. We also need to know how and how not to love to that end. Thankfully, God did not leave us in the dark; He has given us His Law to show us how. If we believe God intelligently (that is, through His self-revelation in the Bible), we can know how we ought to love one another.
Our faith in God also provides us with the goal of our love. Why should we love one another? Is it because, when we do, there are “two less lonely people in the world”? Or, because it makes us feel good? Or, because we all need it and we should do our best to love one another? Not according to the Word of God. The ultimate goal for loving one another is the glory of God. We glorify God when we love because God is love and He commanded us to love. We glorify God when we love the way God prescribed in His Word. And when we seek God’s glory first in loving one another, we will also experience the deepest satisfaction and joy and security.
Our faith in God also provides us with the strength we need to love one another. God is love and His love is infinite: we can draw from Him all the love we need for ourselves and others. And the fullness of His love was demonstrated in Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for us while we were yet sinners. We may be disappointed and frustrated by our lack of love. But if we are united with Christ through faith, we have available to us God’s infinite love. Our loving God has allowed us to drink deep from the ocean-depth of His love so that we can love one another as Christ has loved us. May the Lord increase our faith in Him so that our love for one another may also increase!