Love Within the Community – 1 John
2:7-17 Part II
The Necessity of Wholeheartedly Loving God
John reminds his fellow believers this command is not new. Often, he reiterates this teaching in his
gospel and elsewhere. Perhaps, he repeatedly
tells them about the foot washing episode during “The Last Supper” to
demonstrate Christ’s love as a servant to His disciples and humankind.
Throughout his writings, John maintains a duality between light and
darkness, love and hate and life and death.
Often, we think we live in the first halves of these couplets if we are
financially prosperous, physically well, morally correct and ethically
righteous. We reason we live in the
second halves when we experience moral lapses and the consequences of personal
sin. However, the great apostle of love
exhorts us to consider we live in darkness, hatred and death when we fail to
love our brothers and sisters.
Fundamentally, obedience to the law of love is a requirement to living
in the light.
“God is love.” That verse is one
of the clearest statements of the character and nature of Almighty God. Love is the primary means by which God draws
humankind to Him. Therefore, it is
inconceivable a person can affirmatively claim to know God and possess the love
of God if he hates anyone. Additionally,
he shows he no longer dwells in the darkness of self-centered fear and
self-seeking motives by forsaking his personal desires and interests by
selflessly loving others. Living in the
light emerges as one proactively demonstrates love. It is not a matter of resisting emotions of
anger, resentment, bitterness and hatred.
The love of which John speaks is not a feeling. Rather, it is a commitment to a way of
life. Living in the light in this
passage equates with “abiding” in the “True Vine,” the Lord Himself. In the gospel, John records Jesus’
exhortation to His disciples about the necessity of dwelling with Him in heart,
mind, soul and strength as they adhere faithfully and lovingly to His
commands. This is not burdensome for anyone
who commits wholeheartedly.
John concludes today’s passage with a warning to resist any temptation
to love the world and anything it offers.
The wizards of Madison Avenue, the lobbyists of Avenue K, the moguls of
Hollywood, and the tycoons of multimedia, all, lure believers back into the
world with their colorful depictions and artistic imagination. Slick and glossy advertisements tempt you to
believe happiness is found in clothing, perfume, shoes and other material
possessions. Political lobbyists in
Washington DC manufacture impressions of power as the only means of
security. Daily, shiny images of movie
and entertainment celebrities through whom many people live vicariously bombard
us. Beneath the surface of these glitzy
façades is the hopelessness in which many of these people live. They actually desire the stability of average
loving and spiritually committed people.
Still, countless disciples split their hearts by continuing to pursue
these temporal things to the detriment of loving their brothers and sisters as
they share the Lord’s blessings with them.
Forcefully, John extends his use of duality to affirm the spiritual
principle that love of God cannot dwell simultaneously in the heart of someone
who loves the world. He additionally submits
unequivocally love of the world does not come from the Father. It contradicts the love of God which seeks
healing and wholeness of each child of God.
Remarkably, John considers the love of the world and its pursuit of selfish
and material aims as hatred of one’s brother.
He undercuts the prevailing notion that one loves everyone if one has a
warm fuzzy feeling in one’s heart.
The Necessity of Wholeheartedly Loving Your Brother
The evangelist parallels love and hatred with light and darkness. As God is love, we walk in the light of His
love as we demonstrate it freely and unconditionally to our brothers and
sisters in the body of Christ. Conversely, should we choose to hate people, we
stumble in darkness of anger, bitterness and vengeance. John draws this contrast to eliminate the
false notion of “Lone Ranger” Christians who strengthen their personal
relationships with the Lord while ignoring and despising other people. He alludes to the physical fact that light
and darkness can occupy the same space simultaneously. Likewise, a human heart filled with hatred
for other children of God cannot channel the pure love of God. Christ’s agape cannot co-exist with human
hatred.
It is necessary to distinguish between loving and liking someone. Whereas the Lord commands us to love
everybody, it does not stand to reason that we will like everyone. Particularly, in the Church, people say and
do things that are not the least bit likeable.
As a consequence, we tend to avoid such people. Assuredly, we do not socialize with
them. However, we ask the Holy Spirit to
assist us in preventing our dislike from materializing into hatred. This transition occurs more frequently than
we may imagine. A daily reminder of the
biblical command to love everyone serves as an effective antidote to this
disease.
How do love people who do really unlovable and unlikable things? Even in the Church, there are people who
cannot tell the truth if it were seared indelibly upon their tongues. Incredulously, many lifelong church goers
lack integrity and courage to stand for righteousness in the midst of unjust,
unfair, unprincipled and unsubstantiated accusations. What about an abundance of “two-faced” people
in the Church who grovel to be liked to the point of relinquishing all personal
confidence and self-respect? Though I
could continue with countless examples, it suffices to simply ask how one
sincerely obeys God by loving these difficult people.
A significant part of loving people, generally, and tough
personalities, specifically, is forgiving their incapacities. No one is perfect. If we look for perfect people to love, we
look in vain. God loves us as we are
with the perfect intention of transforming us with His love into the character
of Christ. As He demonstrates His love
by overlooking our limitations, He models for us the way to love complex people
whose words and deeds often contradict each other. In sum, God in the gift of the sacrificial
love of Christ shows us how to love wholeheartedly our brothers and sisters as
we love Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment