Jas 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says
he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? Jas 2:15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and
lacking in daily food, Jas 2:16 and one
of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without
giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? Jas 2:17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have
works, is dead. Jas 2:18 But someone
will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart
from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
1Jn 4:10 In this is love, not that we have loved God
but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1Jn 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," and
hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he
has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
The above verses are well known teachings on Christian
love. James doesn’t use the word love,
instead he uses faith but it is obvious he is teaching that genuine faith is
proven by love. We use the word love so
often that it is easy for Christians to use it without thinking through what
true love is. When we do this we can
assume we love but can fall into the trap of not thinking of love by its
biblical definition. So we assume that
since I like someone and care about them and like being around them and pray
for them that I am exercising Christian love toward them when, in fact, I am
not loving them very well at all.
What the above verses remind us of is that love is shown by
actions not so much by feelings. Perhaps
another way to say it is that love ministers to its objects. Yes, love cares for the good of others but it
also puts feet to it by a willingness to do something to meet their needs. Love is willing to be inconvenience and to
sacrifice of itself so that our love can be expressed to the ones we say we love.
If we are not careful, we can examine ourselves and assume
we pass the test of love because when we think of our church family, for
instance, we like their fellowship and we care enough about them to pray for
them if they happen to let us know of a prayer request. So we smugly cross off
love from our checklist of Christian virtues to work on and thank God that we
aren’t as bad as we could be.
But the problem is that we have lowered the definition of
love so low that we can easily step over it.
When I see church members willing to spend a couple of hours with each
other on Sunday but have nothing to do with the people they “love” until the
next Sunday then I wonder if we are really being honest with ourselves. Is caring enough to pray for someone really a
demonstration of Christian love? Is it not
a little like standing on the shore while a “loved one” is drowning and praying
for their deliverance instead of jumping in and getting wet and doing what
needs to be done? We care for each other
as long as you don’t come over to my house and don’t invite me over to
yours. We are willing to pray for
whatever needs they have but not get our feet dirty by getting involved with
them and being close enough to them so that you can actually do something
beyond mentioning them in passing while you pray for all of your wants and
needs.
We don’t want to get to know them to the point that we
might have to offer some advice or rebuke and we certainly don’t want them to
see our weaknesses and offer to help us.
We reduce love to warm feelings but we don’t do what James tells us to
do in the above verses. We don’t want to
get close enough to someone so that they might actually show up on our door
step and ask us to be inconvenienced for their sake. I don’t think that is biblical love and I
wonder if sometimes we are fooling ourselves because we are unwilling to
examine ourselves in the light of God’s Word instead of our watered down
version of it.
Before we dismiss this as applying to the church down the
street let’s remind ourselves of Rev
3:1 "And to the angel of the church
in Sardis write: 'The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the
seven stars. "'I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive,
but you are dead. Rev 3:2 Wake up, and
strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works
complete in the sight of my God. Rev 3:3
Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you
will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour
I will come against you.
Every church has a reputation of following the Bible and of
being alive, even the ones that don’t believe it anymore; people just assume
it. Vs. 2 says that their problem is
incomplete works. Perhaps they talked
about how much they loved and prayed for people but they never got around to
actually proving it; it was an incomplete work in the sight of God.
1 John 4:10 above shows how God demonstrated his love by
subjecting himself to crucifixion for those he claimed to love. He practiced what he preached, his actions
matched his words, to use some clichés, and if we are going to honestly examine
whether we love, we are going to have to see some actual ministry to the needs
of others. Not just you physical family
but your brothers and sisters in Christ; those that you can help. We have to become vulnerable, open, humble,
willing to get dirty and inconvenienced for the sake of Christ. If we are unwilling we have no right to claim
to love as Christ as loved us.
