Monday, April 9, 2018
And we can
be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t
obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how
completely they love him. That is how we
know we are living in him. Those who say
they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. Dear friends, I am not writing a new
commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very
beginning. This old commandment—to love
one another—is the same message you heard before. Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and
you also are living it. For the darkness
is disappearing, and the true light is already shining. If anyone claims, “I am living in the light,”
but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves a fellow believer is
living in the light and does not cause others to stumble. But anyone who hates a fellow believer is
still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go,
having been blinded by the darkness. 1 John
2:3-11(NLT)
It’s hard to know
where to begin; our culture has so skewed the meaning of the word “love” that
the mere mention of it changes the tenor of a conversation. Indeed there are so many different meanings,
and usages within the meanings of English words. Our word spelled T-E-A-R can refer
to drops in the eye, rips in the cloth, or the way a car frantically tear-s out of the parking
lot.
When John writes
about loving one another he uses the word which means true affection in the
moral sense – doing the very best for that other person, even if it is at great
cost to you, such as giving your only son to die on a cross; it’s the God kind
of love.
There is a great
confusion that haunts the church these days about applying that concept to the
moral dilemma of how to think about loving the sinner and despising the sin. Some look at the concept of love
as being throw-open-the-door, all is fine, there isn’t anything you do that
can tick God off, so I’m OK, and you’re OK. But that hardly squares with all the
prohibitions in Scripture about stealing, lying, profanity, sexual immorality,
and so on. Neither does it square with
Jesus’ actions recorded in the Gospel accounts[2]
where he flipped the tables of the moneychangers and whipped the sellers of
doves. Not only did Jesus consider these
people sinners – he drove them out of church!
In our culture’s social tolerance view that
hardly comes under the definition of love. And if we contend that Jesus is the very
definition of love, and therefore always acted in love, we either have a skewed
definition of love, or a skewed idea of a Savior.
But a simple analogy
clears the confusion (even though it’s hard for me to keep anything simple). Consider the parent of a two year old. The Mom and Dad have a child that is petulant
and strong-willed. The little man wants
to sit on the railroad tracks that run alongside the house. He loves the choo-choo’s whistle-noise and
the way the presence of the train shakes everything when it comes through. He wants to be up close, and the best seat in
the house is on the tracks. He is only
two, so he hasn’t developed the sense of consequences his actions will
bring. That is where Mom and Dad enter
the picture…as adults, parents, and somewhat older than baby boy, they tell him
he can’t do that. What is little boy’s
reaction – he calls the child welfare department and his lawyer, alledging his
overbearing parents are depriving him of expressing his personhood, stunting
his emotional growth, and sues for separation.
Anyone with a
functioning brain understands the child is blind to what constitutes his best
interest. If the parents are functional
they love
the child by imposing their will over his foolish behavior.
For You Today
As a fully
(perfect) functioning Heavenly Parent, our God has told us there are some
(lots) of behavior that are not good for us; these behaviors separate us and
Him. And we ought to keep our
cotton-pickin’ hands off them!
You chew on
that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 
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