LOVE-CHRISTIAN
John's point
in 1 John 4, "God is love," is that those who really do know God come
to love that way too. Doubtless we do not do it very well, but aren't
Christians supposed to love the unlovable-even our enemies? Because the Gospel
has transformed us, our love is to be self-originating, not elicited by the
loveliness of the loved. For that is the way it is with God. He loves because love is one of His
perfections, in perfect harmony with all His other perfections.
The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God,
Crossway, 2000, p. 63.
Christians
have no excuse for not loving, "because the love of God has been poured
out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Rom.
5:5). We do not have to manufacture love; we only have to share the love we
have been given. We do not have to be humanly taught to love, because we
ourselves "are taught by God to love one another" (1 Thes. 4:9). We
are therefore told to "pursue love" (1 Cor. 14:1), to "put on
love" (Col. 3:14), to "increase and abound in love" (1 Thes.
3:12; Phil. 1:9), to be sincere in love (2 Cor. 8:8), to be unified in love
(Phil. 2:2), to be "fervent" in love (1 Pet. 4:8), and to
"stimulate one another to love (Heb. 10:24).
John MacArthur
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 330.
Selfless love
does not serve in order to prevent its own harm or to insure its own welfare.
It serves for the sake of the one being served, and serves in the way it likes
being served – whether it ever receives such service or not. That level of love
is the divine level, and can be achieved only by divine help... Unregenerate
man can never come up to the standard of selfless love – the love that loves
others as oneself and that treats others in the same way that one wants to be
treated.
John MacArthur
Matthew 1-7, Moody, 1985, p. 447, 446.
In John 13
the point was that, if an individual Christian does not show love toward other
true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian.
Here (in John 17:21) Jesus is stating something else which is much more
cutting, much more profound: We cannot expect the world to believe the Father
sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true,
unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.
Francis Schaeffer
It is this
lack of love among Christians which today makes the church an insipid, lukewarm
institution. People come to find affection and are turned off by our tepidity.
Phillip Keller
A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, Permission by
Zondervan, www.zondervan.com, 1970, p.
133.
God has given
us people to love and things to use, not people to use and things to love.
Author Unknown
Genuine love
is volitional rather than emotional.
Author
Unknown
Christian
love is never theoretical or abstract; it is always practical.
Alexander Strauch
Leading With Love, Lewis and Roth, 2006, p. 111-112, Used
by Permission.
Selfishness
is when we pursue gain at the expense of others. But God doesn't have a limited
number of treasures to distribute. When you store up treasures for yourself in
heaven, it doesn't reduce the treasures available to others. In fact, it is by
serving God and others that we store up heavenly treasures. Everyone gains; no
one loses.
Randy Alcorn
Excerpted from The Treasure Principle
by Randy Alcorn, 2002 by Eternal Perspective Ministries, p. 15-16.
The more
excellent something is the more likely it will be imitated. There are many
false diamonds and rubies, but who goes about making counterfeit pebbles?
However, the more excellent things are the more difficult it is to imitate them
in their essential character and intrinsic virtues. Yet the more variable the
imitations be, the more skill and subtlety will be
used in making them an exact imitation.
So it is with Christian virtues and graces. The devil and men's own
deceitful hearts tend to imitate those things that have the highest value. So
no graces are more counterfeited than love and humility. For
these are the virtues where the beauty of a true Christian is seen most
clearly.
Jonathan Edwards
Religious Affectations.
What is the surest character of true, divine,
supernatural love that distinguishes it from counterfeits that arise from a
natural self-love? It is the Christian virtue of humility that shines in it.
Divine love above all others renounces and abases what we term “self.”
Christian love or true love is a humble love… In that person we see a sense of his own smallness, vileness, weakness, and utter
insufficiency. We see a lack of self-confidence. We see self-emptiness,
self-denial, and poverty of spirit. These are the manifest tokens of the Spirit
of God.
Jonathan
Edwards
Distinguishing
Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God, 1741.
Modern language courtesy of Archie Parrish, The Spirit of
Revival, Crossway Books, 2000, p. 99.
here are people who love those who agree
with them and admire them, but have no time for those who oppose and dislike
them. A Christian’s love must be universal!
Jonathan Edwards
Let a man
have what he will, and do what he will, it signifies nothing without charity;
which surely implies that charity is the great thing, and that everything which
has not charity in some way contained or implied in it is nothing, and that
this charity is the life and soul of all religion, without which all things
that wear the name of virtues are empty and vain.
Jonathan Edwards
And
at the end of the world, when the church of Christ shall be settled in its
last, and most complete, and its eternal state, and all common gifts, such as
convictions and illuminations, and all miraculous gifts, shall be eternally at
an end, yet then divine love shall not fail, but shall be brought to its most
glorious perfection in every individual member of the ransomed church above.
Then, in every heart, that love which now seems as but a spark,
shall be kindled to a bright and glowing flame, and every ransomed soul shall
be as it were in a blaze of divine and holy love, and shall remain and grow in
this glorious perfection and blessedness through all eternity!
Jonathan Edwards
But
it is doubtless true, and evident from these Scriptures, that the essence of
all true religion lies in holy love; and that in this divine affection, and an
habitual disposition to it, and that light which is the foundation of it, and
those things which are the fruits of it, consists the whole of religion.
Jonathan Edwards
Imagine [in
heaven] being able to love another human being without even a tinge of
selfishness. Imagine appreciating, no, reveling in the exalted capacities and
stations that God bestows on another without so much
as a modicum of jealousy.
Hank Hanegraaff
Resurrection, W Publishing Group. 2000, p. 117.
If sinners
will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they
will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to
stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our
exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed
for.
C.H. Spurgeon
In some ways,
this is the fullest expression of what Christian love is all about. It does not
seek its own; it does not believe that “finding oneself” is the highest good;
it is not enamored with self-gain, self-justification, self-worth. To the
contrary, it seeks the good of one’s neighbor – or enemy.
Gordon Fee
1 Corinthians, Eerdmans, 1987, p. 638.
I'm planning
to be civil toward any of my neighbors who may be heading for the local mosque.
But in no way will I accept the charge that to tell them of the truth of the
gospel of Jesus is to jeopardize the "pluralism" that has made
America a great springboard of freedom for so many generations. And no way
either will I concede the right – a right that has now become a duty – to tell
them that the error of their thinking is profound. I will do that not because I
hate them, but because I love them.
Joel Belz
World Magazine, November/December,
2001.
[Jesus Christ’s] victory, of course,
does not mean that we rush off to kill all our enemies. It means instead that
we are to love them. Our love for them must be strong enough, however, to tell
them with both passion and compassion, that their hopes are in vain, that their
gods are mute and dumb, and that there is only one name under heaven by which a
man must be saved. Our love for them does not present the Christian Gospel as
an option. It does not lead us to argue that it’s a good option that has worked
well for us. Our love instead commands all men everywhere to repent and believe
the Gospel, lest they perish. Our love calls on all our enemies to kiss the
Son, lest He be angry and they perish along the way
(Ps. 2:12).
R.C. Sproul Jr.
Kiss
the Son, Tabletalk, June 2008, p. 81, Used by Permission.
Disturbers
are to be rebuked, the low spirited to be encouraged, the infirm to be
supported, objectors confuted, the treacherous guarded against, the unskilled
taught, the lazy aroused, the contentious restrained, the haughty repressed,
the poor relieved, the oppressed liberated, the good approved, the evil borne
with, and all are to be loved!
Augustine
Learning how
to love your neighbor requires a willingness to draw on the strength of Jesus
Christ as you die to self and live for Him. Living in this manner allows you to
practice biblical love for others in spite of adverse circumstances or your
feelings to the contrary.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 13, Page 1,
Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Loving others
in a biblical manner involves your thoughts, words, and actions and is a sign
of your being a disciple of Christ. Loving others biblically is dependent on
your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and is not dependent on people,
circumstances, or your feelings.
Biblical Counseling Foundation
Self-Confrontation Manuel, Lesson 13, Page
27, Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
The badge of
courage does not require that we walk through something dangerous. It simply
requires that we continue to share God's love whenever and wherever we are.
Tom White
Voice of the Martyrs.
[Christian
love] is that benevolent disposition or kindness which consists in good-will to
all creatures, and which leads us, as we have opportunity to promote their
happiness… Such is love – not a mere natural amiableness of temper—not a soft,
weakly, disposition. No! but a fruit of the Spirit. It
is a benevolence, which is the result of regeneration; cherished by a sense of
God's love to us in Christ Jesus; guided in its exercises by the Holy
Scriptures; and directed, as its end, to the glory of God.
John Angell James
Christian Love.
Love is a
grace which many professing Christians think far too little about; but it is of
infinite value in the eyes of God. Love is the most characteristic feature of
Christ's image in a renewed man. Love is the most precious fruit of grace; and
yet the fruit which too many of His professed followers seem to think
themselves hardly under any obligation to cultivate.
John Angell James
Christian Love.
The Christian
is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his wife is his nearest neighbor,
she should be his deepest love.
Martin Luther
Christian Reader, v. 32, n. 3.
For where
love is wanting, the beauty of all virtue is mere tinsel, is empty sound, is
not worth a straw, nay more, is offensive and
disgusting.
John Calvin
God seeks and
values the gifts we bring Him – gifts of praise, thanksgiving, service, and
material offerings. In all such giving at the altar we enter into the highest
experiences of fellowship. But the gift is acceptable to God in the measure to
which the one who offers it is in fellowship with Him in character and conduct;
and the test of this is in our relationships with our fellow men. We are thus
charged to postpone giving to God until right relationships are established
with others. Could the neglect of this be the explanation of the barrenness of
our worship? (Matt. 5:24)
G. Campbell Morgan
Part of our
evangelistic activity has to do with the way we relate to each other as
believers. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if
you love one another” (John 13:34-35). If you are not expressing proper
Christian love to every member of your church, you are in disobedience to God
and you are hindering the evangelistic work of your church.
Mark Dever
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, Crossway,
2000, p. 110.
Most
often, people who say that others have no love are themselves
the ones most lacking. They think the new commandment says, “Love me or I’ll
destroy you and your church.” They sit around waiting for other people to love
them. How easy it is to see the speck of lovelessness
in another’s eye but miss the log of self-centeredness, hypocrisy, and anger in
your own eye (Matt. 7:3-5).
Alexander Strauch
Leading
With Love, Lewis and Roth, 2006, p. 87-88, Used by Permission.
We have
unfortunately come to believe that a watching world will know that we are
Christians by the worldly things we avoid or the churchy things we do. Christ
has a different perspective. Our identity with Him is marked by the oneness
that comes from our mutual love for each other.
Joseph Stowell
This We Believe, John Armstrong and John
Woodbridge, ed. Zondervan, 2000, p. 207.
We are
trusted to spread the spirit of love. Tenderness in judgment, the habit of
thinking the best of one another, unwillingness to believe evil, grief if we
are forced to do so, eagerness to believe good, joy over one recovered from any
slip or fall, unselfish gladness in another’s joys, sorrow in another’s sorrow,
readiness to do anything to help another entirely irrespective of self – all
this and much more is included in that wonderful word love. If love weakens
among us, if it ever becomes possible to tolerate the least shadow of an
unloving thought, our Fellowship will begin to perish. Unlove
is deadly. It is a cancer. It may kill slowly but it always kills in the end.
Let us fear it, fear to give room to it as we should fear to nurse a cobra. It
is deadlier than any cobra. And just as one minute drop of the almost invisible
cobra venom spreads swiftly all over the body of one into whom it has been
injected, so one drop of the gall of unlove in my
heart or yours, however unseen, has a terrible power of spreading all through
our Family, for we are one body – we are parts of one another. If one member
suffers loss, all suffer loss. Not one of us liveth
to herself.
Any
Carmichael
Taken from a little manuscript Amy wrote for
some of her closest co-laborers.