Word Live: The L-Shaped Life
Lord, teach me to love people. Amen.
Bible passage
1 John 3:11–24
More on love and hatred
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: we should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 if our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: we know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Explore
Cain (v 12) messed up seriously (see Genesis 4). He sacrificed to the Lord but he murdered his brother. Now, towards the end of the Bible, John is on a similar theme. Love for God and love for our brother and sister go together. They are inseparable. Christianity is always L-shaped, combining a ‘vertical’ dimension (God) with a ‘horizontal’ dimension (our fellow human beings).
Hate has been in the world for a long time. Cain hated his brother, Abel, who had done nothing to deserve it. Even Jesus experienced hate. John strengthens his readers for the hatred that may well come their way. They can take encouragement from their own concern for others, which is a sign of being on the side of life, not death (vs 14,15). ‘But do I really have eternal life?’ asks a sensitive conscience. Fortunately, it doesn’t depend on our conscience, but on God, who wonderfully is ‘greater than our hearts, and he knows everything’ (vs 19,20). We can trust him.
The horizontal challenge of these verses is unmissable. ‘Love one another’, ‘lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters’, have pity on those in need, love with actions and in truth (vs 11,16,17,23). It is a lifelong mission. As Jesus gave himself for others in big ways and small, so do we.
Author
Roger Combes
Respond
Many Christians give regularly to charities helping our brothers and sisters in need at home and abroad. Is there a need, locally or internationally, you would like to renew or develop an interest in, and support?
Deeper Bible study
‘Love is an action requiring your involvement and active participation. You cannot sit back and expect the world will serve it to you.’1
Being conformed into the glorious and loving image of Jesus must land in concrete ways in our lives. John makes it practical by explaining what this looks like: not hatred, but selfless love for others. For John, it’s always the dual call of verse 23: to believe in the name of Christ and to love one another in obedience to him. This summarises his message in the letter. This kind of life leads to living in God and God living in us.
John holds up Jesus as the ultimate example of what love is in the way that he laid down his life for us. He challenges us to also lay down our lives for others. The love of God will compel us to have pity on our brother and sister in need; John implores us not to love merely with words or speech but in action and in truth (with genuineness).
Many Christians become very good at saying all the right things and sounding holy, but this isn’t real love. For John, godly love must express itself in genuinely and sacrificially caring for others in need. This is a rigorous, active kind of love, not feelings and self-righteous words but a substantial lifestyle of service towards others. It is this kind of life that leads our hearts to be at rest in his presence and, even if we feel condemned at times by our failures, John says God is greater than this and we can be reassured that we are his and he will not condemn us. This teaching is similar to that of James 2:14–17, an expression of early Christian ethics and a challenge to us today.
How clearly do your actions demonstrate love? Could you be more generous with your money, possessions, talents or time? How can you lay down your life for others today?
1 Stephen Covey, 1932–2012
Author
Daniel McGinnis
