Love in Action
Everyone seems to be for love until you define it according to God’s word. Our culture is full of voices claiming for equality and love, yet actions of inequality and lack of love seem to be the loudest voices in the room. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to understand the different Greek words for love for a better understanding. After all, Paul said in Ephesians 3:19 that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge.
We’re given the best lesson in Matthew 22:36-39: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 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.’”
God’s people are called to love in action while living in an unloving world. I’m tired of the pandemic, the politics, the riots, and the culture telling us as God’s people how to live. God himself has already told us how to live and that is with love in action. I have witnessed this love in action as I watch the church respond last year to the damage in Iowa and the hurricane in our own state of Louisiana.
1 John 3:16-18 defines love in action. “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. 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? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
Love in action is self-sacrificing (1 John 3:16). Jesus laid down his life for us and calls us to do the same for others. His sacrifice is for our sin and our sacrifice is for his glory.
Love in action is personal (1 John 3:17). The evidence of love is seen in the action we take with what we have when we see a brother or sister in need. No action equals no love.
Love in action is coupled with truth (1 John 3:18). Ryan Lee always tells our relief teams going out that we are not just another humanitarian group, because we want to show them Jesus and give them hope—not just help. Love coupled with the truth of who Jesus is and what he has done is the real answer for the conflicts and circumstances we face. Love that is just words and tongue mean nothing. It must be in actions and in truth. The old saying is still true: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
When the hurricane hit our town I saw love. I saw love working a chainsaw cutting trees off houses. I saw love carrying limbs and trash off people’s property. I saw love donating money to meet the needs of those who lost everything. I saw love sweating in the heat of Louisiana helping others to only go home to their own houses that were without electricity and hot water. I saw love in action by people who had been rescued by the love in action seen at the cross of Christ.
We love because God first loved us. Love in action is being like Jesus. 1 John 4:16-17: “…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Jesus.”
Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world—and so must we.