1 John 3:16- 17 “By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him?”
We have been studying God’s love and the story of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. One legitimate question is this: why was God so hard on Adam and Eve? Couldn’t God have cut them some slack? Did God really act lovingly when He banished Adam and Eve from Eden and forced Cain to become a fugitive?
Many times we want to confuse love with indulgence. God loved Adam and Eve, and He continued to love them after He had sent them away from Eden. But God was and is a just God, and justice demanded that sin be punished. Adam and Eve had disobeyed God. Disobedience required discipline. Who knows how much more evil Adam and Eve might have committed had God allowed them to remain in Eden?
Loving parents are not indulgent parents, and indulgence is not an act of love. Many times, parents indulge their children, not because they love them but because they are busy or distracted or hope that indulgence will buy love. But love is earned and not bought with things. Loving parents discipline their children. Proverbs 22:6 says “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
How do we recognize an act of love? We look at Jesus. Jesus laid down His life for our sins. If we are to truly follow Jesus, we must be willing to lay down our lives and be compassionate to those around us who are in need. But there are so many needs! How can we know when to help? We must listent to the Holy Spirit. Once we have confessed our sins and have asked God to come into our hearts, He gives His Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us. When faced with perplexing questions, we can ask God for direction and He will quietly impress on us what we need to do. But we must be prepared for surprises.
Several years ago, we traveled to Accra to buy drugs and medical supplies for the Saboba hospital. We had just parked our vehicle when we realized that all four of the tires were going flat at once! This was at a time when money transfers were slow and difficult. Imagine our joy to find that two months earlier, someone had donated the exact amount of money we needed to replace those tires. God had moved in someone’s heart and they had acted, not knowing of the need.
At times, we have been moved to help someone without knowing their situation, only to learn that they were in desperate need and had been begging God for help. It is just as thrilling to be the means of help as it is to be on the receiving end because it means that we have heard God correctly.
God’s love is compassionate, but God also is a just God who hates sin. Because God loves us, he sent Jesus to die for our sins. As John said in 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
PRAYER: Father God, we confess that we are sinners and that your justice would demand that we pay for our sins with our lives. Thank you for sending Jesus to die in our place. We now turn ourselves over to you and ask you to lead us and guide us so that we will live as people of love. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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