demonstrated love shows we are Christ's, not the display of material things.

[melbro]

The love of God we have not seen is proven by how we love the brethen we have seen?

 

[Who Me]

To be pedantic our Love for God is seen in how we obey him and love others, especially how we love the unlovelly.

 

[christgal33]

We must also love those who had fallen and sinned greatly, like the murderers and rapists.

 

[Tenchi]

The love of God we have not seen is proven by how we love the brethen we have seen?

I know a number of non-Christians who work to better the lives of the impoverished, homeless, and sick. They go off to foreign countries and serve for months at a time, enduring uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions to do so. I've known very friendly, generous, good-humored - just all-around nice - people who weren't lovers of God at all. They'd cheerfully lend you their lawnmower, or shovel the snow from your driveway without you asking them to, or chin-wag pleasantly with you over a cup of iced tea on the back patio. But God has nothing to do with any of their niceness.

My point is that since non-Christians can act in loving ways, how sure a thing is practical love in demonstrating that one is saved? And what about the hypocrite/false convert, who gives you a smile and a warm handshake on Sunday morning at church, and maybe sings in the church choir, and faithfully attends the mid-week, small-group Bible study, but whose life is filled with hidden addictions, bitterness, jealousy, and pride? They seem to be "loving" - on the surface - but their private life is actually a terrible mess. How sure a sign that they are saved is their "love" toward you on Sunday morning and toward the church through their positive participation in its activities? Not very, I think.

Remember what Jesus said about the hyper-obedient Pharisees, the professionally religious of Christ's time?

Matthew 15:7-8
7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

When a professing Christian honors God with their lips, praising Him, and claiming fidelity to Him, they can be doing so just as the Pharisees did, giving a false testimony to the true condition of their heart toward God. How much trust, then, should one put in these outward demonstrations of love for God?

And how about the horrible story Jesus told in his Sermon on the Mount?

Matthew 7:21-23
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Here are people who are doing a number of outwardly good things, things Christians would rightly put in the "practical love" category: exorcising demons, prophesying, performing miracles (and all in Jesus' name, what's more). But Jesus says to these "loving" people, "I never knew you." Yikes. The outward performance of good deeds, doing loving things (like freeing people from demonic possession), did not reveal an inward, spiritual connection to Christ.

So, what am I saying, then? Is the Christian not supposed to bother with loving action toward others? No, of course not. God doesn't give us this option in His word. Just read 1 John 4:7-11, or John 15:12-13, or 1 John 3:14-18, and 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. We are absolutely to love as Christ has loved us, self-sacrificially giving himself for us.

Christian love, though, isn't merely being really nice, or likeable, or helpful. God's supernatural love goes far beyond giving charitably from your excess, or loving your own family and friends faithfully, or being a "good Christian" in the eyes of others. Christian love isn't merely being tolerant, and affirming, and compassionate in the way the World urges people to be, embracing the wicked in their wickedness, encouraging them in their sin, and protecting them against any censure. Christian love doesn't flex and flow with cultural currents, yielding to whatever new trend in the Church comes along, however unbiblical it is. No, like Christ who loved perfectly, the Christian who is loving in a truly godly way will suffer persecution - not from the World only, but from their own brethren (who don't love as Christ loves and don't want to).

Agape love very often hurts - a lot; just as was the case with Christ. As Scripture tells us, he has loved better than any human ever has, or will, but he suffered terribly, too, as a result. In loving us, he had to sacrifice life itself for us - but not gently; not in heroic glory, like some shining knight on the battlefield; not to the applause and appreciation of those who knew him best. No, his love - agape love - led him into obscene brutality and torment, into ridicule, and public humiliation, which he endured, not just for those who loved him, but for those who hated him and did not understand at all the enormity and profundity of what he was doing for them.

So, when was the last time you witnessed a fellow believer acting in this agape love way? When was the last time you acted in this way? Mostly, I observe Christians who love no better, in no greater a way, than many non-Christians. And this is so because most Christians cannot muster from within themselves the agape love of their Maker. They try, thinking that God has commanded them to produce from their own human resources their best version of His agape love. But in the effort to do so, they exhaust themselves, and grow deeply resentful, and frustrated and learn nothing of God's power, only the extremely limited and corrupt extent of their own ability to achieve a supernatural kind of love from their own natural power.

In reality, God never expects us to love His way in our own power, by our own human effort. If we try, we will always get a very foul, human result that may appear shiny on the outside but inside is full of the dark rot of Self. Instead, God has told us to get out of His way so that He can love through us. We do this, we get out of His way, by going low before Him in humility and submission, in faithful, loving dependence, daily yielding ourselves to Him as "living sacrifices" to do with as He pleases.

Romans 12:1
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Romans 6:13
13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

James 4:6-7
6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God...

James 4:10
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Matthew 18:2-4
2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them
3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Few Christians live in this way in the North American Church and so, generally, the Church in the West is absent of agape love. Oh, there are plenty of nice people, but very few who are truly godly. Are you one of these few? Am I? A vital question to ask, I think.

 

[Carry_Your_Name]

The love of God we have not seen is proven by how we love the brethen we have seen?

Yes, sharing is caring. Love the Lord with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.