Loving God by Loving Others
In a previous article, we considered how the Christian God is love. It’s intrinsic to his Being and it’s demonstrated to us in the coming of his Son.
The God who is love calls us to love him. We are to love him wholeheartedly:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.
Luke 10:27 NIV
Similarly, we are to love God by obeying him (John 14:15, 14:21, 1 John 5:3). In this article, we’ll turn to the love of people. Why do we love other people? Who are we to love? What does love look like? How do we love others?
Why Love Other People?
First, why love other people?
The answers are pretty simple:
Because It’s What We Do
Love is common sense. God is love. God demonstrates his love to us by sending his Son to die for our sins. And now, as his people, we are defined by love. We have a love that comes from God. Love is just what we do.
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.
I John 4:7–8.
Love is just what we do. Romans 5:5 tells us that “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Love has become a part of us.
Because God Said So
So, in many ways, we don’t need to be told to love. It goes without saying. But often, what goes without saying needs to be said. So, God says:
Love your neighbour as yourself.
Leviticus 19:18
Jesus says the same thing (Matthew 5:43, 19:16, 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, John 13:34), as do Paul (Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14) and James (James 2:8). Paul even adds that as we love people, we fulfil the law because “love is the fulfilment of the law” (Romans 13:10).
God is a God of love. God calls us to love him. God says that we love him by obeying his commands. God commands us to love others. Therefore, when we love others, we’re loving God.
Likewise, when we fail to love others, we’re disobeying God and thus failing to love him.
Because it’s a Way of Witnessing to the World
Finally, we love because it’s a way of witnessing to the world. In Joh 13:35 we read:
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
When we love others, we show people that we are Jesus’ disciples. And when people see the love and realise that we’re Jesus’ disciples, it shows people how great Jesus is. It’s a way of commending Jesus to others. People notice.
On the flip side, people will notice when we fail to love each other. This is a bad witness to the world. When we fail to love others, we fail to reflect God’s love, we fail to obey God, we fail to love God, and we fail to point people to Jesus in a positive light. We make Jesus look pretty unimpressive.
2. Who Are We to Love?
The Bible makes it clear that we love people, but which people?
Neighbours
First, Jesus instructs us to “love our neighbours as ourselves” (Mark 12:31). This is the main group we’re called to love: those directly in front of us. Often, Christians embark upon great missions and commit to great ministries with the express purpose of loving people, only to neglect those closest to them: their parents, siblings, husbands, wives, children, or members of their local churches. Loving our neighbour means loving those directly in front of us; that’s one of the main points of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). For what it’s worth, I reckon an even more significant point of the parable is that we fail to do what is required to “to inherit eternal life” (Luke 10:25), namely, love God and love neighbour, and therefore desperately need God’s love in Jesus.
Fellow Believers
Next, Christians are called to love fellow believers. “Love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
Enemies
Jesus also calls us to a radical form of love, loving even those who oppose or mistreat us. “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).
Those on the Margins
Finally, we are to love those on the margins. The Bible often discusses caring for the foreigner, the poor, the oppressed, and those in need.
Sometimes, when you find your “peeps,” it can be tempting to love them and ignore everyone else. These peeps might be your family, a group of friends, members of a team at church, or those in a Bible study. These peeps are easy to love. So we find ourselves pouring our love into these. And we can be tempted to divert all of our love to them.
Jesus says, “No: cast your net wider.”
That doesn’t mean we can’t have our peeps. Jesus had his twelve besties. Of the twelve, he had an inner circle of three. And of those, John and Peter battle it out for “best friend” status. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with having an inner circle and an inner circle within the inner circle. But this can’t be to the complete exclusion of others. To do so would be to fail to love others, which would be to fail to obey God, which would be to fail to love God.
The command to love is broad.
3. How Do We Love?
Become Like Jesus
How do we love others? The best answer we can give is “like Jesus.”
This is basically what Paul says. In 1 Corinthians 12:31, he tells us to “eagerly desire the greater gifts” and then adds that he will show us “the most excellent way.” Then, in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, he shows us this most excellent way, the way of love. It’s pretty much a description of Jesus:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4–7
Patient and Kind
Love involves patience and kindness, even with people who are difficult to love, disrespect you, ignore you, cut you down, annoy you, ambush you, bulldoze you, and don’t stop talking. Even when you’re stressed and tired, love means patience and kindness.
Humble
Love is humble. It doesn’t envy others who are better at certain things than you or feel jealous of those who are more popular than you are. It doesn’t boast about achievements, marks, status, possessions, skills, or anything.
Honouring
Love honours other people. One of the worst cancers of Australian culture is a tendency to make jokes about other people in an attempt to cut them down. This is really bad-bad-bad. This is the complete opposite of love. Love doesn’t seek to dishonour others. Love seeks to honour others, to make them look good.
Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbour and says, “I was only joking!”
Proverbs 26:18-19
Selfless
Love is selfless. It isn’t seeking what’s good for us. Love doesn’t try to put itself in a position where others will notice us. Love doesn’t seek status. Love doesn’t try to impress the world. It’s selfless.
Self-Controlled
Love is self-controlled, especially when it comes to anger. I find managing my anger really hard. I get easily annoyed by lots of things. Love means putting on my big-boy boots and not getting easily angered. Love means filtering my thoughts when I’m annoyed and only expressing my irritation when it really matters. Otherwise, I’ll irritate others. This is a work in progress for me!
Forgiving
Love is forgiving. It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. People will wrong you. It will hurt. You won’t want to be around them. Love means working through that and moving past it. In Ephesians 4:2, Paul talks about “bearing with one another in love.” Similarly, in Colossians 3:12–13, he says, “clothe yourselves with compassion … and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.” A key step to forgiving someone is to get yourself to the stage where you can pray for God to bless that person and genuinely want God to answer the prayer!
Rejoicing in Truth
Love also involves rejoicing in the truth. Genuine love finds no pleasure or satisfaction in anything sinful, harmful, or bad. It doesn’t celebrate sin, nor does it laugh at people’s mistakes. Instead, it rejoices in the truth. Love finds joy and fulfilment in what is true, right, and good. Likewise, love finds joy and fulfilment in the most authentic expression of what is true, right and good, in the one who said, “I am The Truth” (John 14:6), and who said, “If you hold to my teaching …then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32).
Pressing On
Finally, love presses on. It doesn’t just protect sometimes; it protects always. It doesn’t just trust sometimes; it trusts always. It doesn’t just hope sometimes; it hopes always. It doesn’t just persevere sometimes; it perseveres always. It keeps going, even when things get tough.
Relationships aren’t always easy. Much of the time, they are difficult. Love moves us to keep going, even when we’re tired, busy, stressed and empty.
We’re Not On Our Own
All of this sounds pretty hard! Impossible even. Thankfully, we’re not on our own. As we read earlier,
God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:5
God is pouring his love into us through his Spirit. God is transforming us by his Spirit into the image of his Son:
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18
Who better to help us love others than the one who is love and first loved us?
