Created to Be Loved and to Love
Created to Be Loved and to Love
You’ve probably heard it said that, “Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus.”
There’s truth to that statement. Christianity is personal in the sense that I cannot choose for anyone else to put their faith in Jesus Christ as their savior and Lord, any more than someone else can choose that for me. The decision to follow Jesus is a personal, individual choice. A pastor friend of mine, Troy Robinson, likes to say that, “God doesn’t have any grandchildren. He only has children.”
But the statement that Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus can also be misleading if we take it to mean that our relationships with Jesus are private, just between us and God; or even if we take it to mean that Christianity is only about having a relationship with God, and nothing more. Because, as we look at what the Bible actually tells us about our faith, we’re going to see that nothing could be further from the truth.
Christianity isn’t just a personal relationship with Jesus…
Relationships and God’s good Design
Being relational was God’s good design for people from the very beginning. And I don’t only mean having a relationship with God. I mean having relationships with other people as well (Genesis 2:4-23).
Growing up, I believed it was wrong — almost sinful — for me to need other people. After all, God is supposed be “everything we need,” right?
Wrong!
God absolutely is the supplier of all of our needs. But God Himself ordained that you and I would need other people, and so He provided us with one another.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” - Genesis 2:18 (NIV)
Back at the start, when there was only one person on the planet, and life really could have just been about a personal relationship between that one person and the God of the Universe, our Creator God declared that it is not good for us to be alone. And so, God gave us the good gift of other people.
You probably know what happened next, though…
Humanity sinned, and because of our sins, a rift was formed between us and God; and not only that, but a rift was formed between us and other people as well (Genesis 3).
The Purpose of God’s Commandments
And so God gave us His commandments (Exodus 20:1-17), the purpose of which was always to lead us back to restored relationships.
Some centuries after the law was first given, someone asked Jesus which of God’s commands was the most important, and Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39, NIV).
Jesus went on to say, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:40, NIV).
What in the world did Jesus mean by that?
If we look at the first four of the 10 Commandants (don’t have any other gods besides God, don’t worship idols, don’t take God’s name in vain, and remember the Sabbath), we can see that all four of these commands can be summed up in one command: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
And if we look at the last six of the 10 Commandants (honor your father and mother, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, and don’t covet), we can see that all six of these commands can also be summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
These commands that God gave us were always intended to point us back to the way things were supposed to be before sin entered the world. God’s commands were always meant to lead us back to restored relationships.
The reasons God reconciled us to Himself
But while God’s commands (or the law) could point us back toward how things were meant to be, they could not take us all the way…
So Jesus did what the law could not do.
Jesus’ finished work on the cross made it possible for us to be reconciled with God. Not only that, but God reconciled us to Himself both for our relationship with Him and for our relationships with others.
The Bible tells 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. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. - 1 John 4:9-11 (ESV)
And just before Jesus gave His life to reconcile us to Himself, He had this to say to those of us who would follow Him:
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” - Jesus (John 13:34, ESV).
Do you know what made this command a “new” command? Because it sounds an awful lot like the old one, doesn’t it?
Previously, Jesus had said that we should “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” Now, however, Jesus was saying that we’re supposed to “love one another, just as He loved us.”
Jesus’ new command rewrote (or completed) the old one.
Before Jesus came and perfectly demonstrated for us what it looks like to actually love one another, all we had to base our understanding of love on was the law and our own ideas about what that should look like lived out. And unfortunately, as fallen people, we are really good at taking rules and twisting them to our own liking or advantage, aren’t we? And in the centuries that passed between when God gave us His law and when Jesus perfectly fulfilled that law, that’s exactly what people had been doing. (And when you and I are not careful, it’s exactly what we are still prone to do today.)
But when Jesus came, for the first time since the fall, we were able to observe perfect love walking among us. So now, we have a better reference point for loving others well than just “it’s what I’d want someone to do for me.”
And because Jesus reconciled us to Himself, not only are we able to receive His love for us, but now, we can love others just as He loved us!
Reconciled to receive and Reproduce God’s love
This brings us back to this idea that Christianity is not just a personal relationship with Jesus…
The Bible tells us that our relationship with God is only genuine if God’s love is reproduced as a result of that relationship — and not just a love for God, but a love for other people as well.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. - 1 John 4:19-21 (NIV)
According to these verses, our love for others should flow out of a love for God, because of a love that comes from God. And consequently, our love should look like God’s love, not our own. (Remember the new command? “As Jesus loved,” not “as we love”…)
But perhaps you’re wondering how big of a deal this whole loving others thing is. Maybe, (like me) you’re not a big “people person,” in your flesh; and maybe you’re hoping (like I used to hope) that there’s an exception for some of us to love God and simply tolerate other people.
Well, the Bible speaks to that…
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. - 1 John 3:14. (NIV)
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. - 1 John 4:7-8 (NIV)
According to these verses, whether or not we love other people is a very big deal, to the point that our love for others is actually the evidence of our faith. And likewise, if we have a lack of love for other people, that’s evidence that we’re not truly a Christian (a follower of Jesus) at all, or at the very least, we’re resisting the work that God wants to do in us to transform us into the likeness of Jesus.
See, not only does our love for other people serve as the evidence of our salvation. As Christians, our love for others should serve as proof to the world that Jesus is who He said He is — particularly if we’re loving other people the way He loves us.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” - Jesus (John 13:34-35 (ESV)
As those who have been reconciled to God and received His love for us, how seriously we take this calling to love other people is the difference between a watching world seeing Jesus or just seeing people who really don’t look any different than them.
Has anyone besides me noticed that, by and large, the way Christians are loving one another (or anyone else, for that matter) nowadays hasn’t turned a whole lot of people on to Christianity? That should cause us to stop and ask some hard questions, and to consider the possibility that we haven’t been living up to our calling as Christians. And if that’s true of us personally — if our love for others hasn’t looked like Jesus’ love for us — then it’s time for us to repent and to do things differently moving forward.
Love’s redemption story
You and I were created to be loved and to love. Then came sin, and with sin, lovelessness.
But God never stopped loving us (John 3:16)! And He made a way for us to be reconciled to Him, so that we could receive His amazing, unrelenting, redeeming love!
And when you and I receive the love of God, and we truly understand what it means — the weight of it, and the world-changing power it carries — we should not be able to contain it or keep it to ourselves!
God’s love received by us, when reproduced in us, can lead other to receive His redeeming love for themselves.
So, my fellow Jesus followers, let us love one another (1 John 4:7), that our lives might be proof to a watching world that Jesus is the answer (John 13:35)!
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