You're commanded to love those around you. Does this mean you must tolerate everything they do?
1 John 4:19-21 (NIV)
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 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. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 29: The Marks of the True Church
The true church can be recognized
if it has the following marks:
The church engages in the pure preaching
of the gospel;
it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments
as Christ instituted them;
it practices church discipline
for correcting faults.
As for those who can belong to the church,
we can recognize them by the distinguishing marks of Christians:
namely by faith,
and by their fleeing from sin and pursuing righteousness,
once they have received the one and only Savior,
Jesus Christ.
They love the true God and their neighbors,
without turning to the right or left,
and they crucify the flesh and its works.
Though great weakness remains in them,
they fight against it
by the Spirit
all the days of their lives,
appealing constantly
to the blood, suffering, death, and obedience of the Lord Jesus,
in whom they have forgiveness of their sins,
through faith in him.
Summary
This is now the fourth time we've turned to 1 John 4 this year (including two days ago), so these verses we're reading today culminate a very important chapter in the Bible.
Today's passage begins with what could seem to be a waste of ink. Of course we love God because He first loved us, right? After all, He knew us before He created anything else, chose us to belong to Him, formed us in our mother's wombs and gave us breath, and is in the process of working all things for the good on our behalf. But we have a way of pushing this fundamental knowledge out of the way of our own egos, so John has good reasons to include this basic reminder. We must be humbled lest we think God owes us a favor for us choosing to serve Him.
So if you claim to love God - which John just reminded us is only possible because God initiated that love - but you do not love the people around you, you're lying; you're lying not just about your love for God, but your status as one who belongs to God. Not loving the people around you is a really big deal! It means that God's love isn't really in you.
Loving the people around you isn't just an option or something that just the 'super Christians' do. It comes to you as a command, with the same full force that the ten commandments have. If you love God, you must love the people around you.
Dig Deeper
The big question here from a practical standpoint is understanding what it means to love the people around you. If you were to go to a busy street corner and ask the first 100 people you came across (which might take some time in our smaller towns!), you'd likely hear people explain that loving a person means to fully accept them as they are without judgment, and to tolerate any behavior or ideas they may have regardless of how different or even wrong they may be. After all, people would say, God loves us unconditionally, doesn't He?
Unfortunately, while such an answer would be very popular, it's not very Biblical. Paul beautifully sets forth the Biblical concept of love in 1 Corinthians 13. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs" (v4-5). So far this definition isn't too different from the world's.
But things quickly change in v6-7: "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." This means that it's never loving to tolerate the sin of somebody you love. In fact, tolerating sin and 'delighting in evil' is the opposite of what it means to love someone!
Notice how beautifully our Confession frames this. We are to love God and our neighbors "without turning to the right or left." In other words, stay firmly planted on solid Biblical ground as you fulfill God's command to love your brother and sister. The best way to love your brothers and sisters is to patiently, kindly and humbly encourage them in God's perfect Truth.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who first loved us;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the wisdom and desire to share the love that God showed you in a way consistent with God's revealed Word;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Titus 3
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