1 John 3:21- 24 “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us. Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.”
It was 1521 and Martin Luther was answering a question from Melancthion, one of his friends. It had only been several months since Luther’s trial in Wittenberg and he was hiding out in Wartburg Castle to avoid execution. Melancthion was asking to know which of the traditional Catholic practices were sinful and which were not. Luther answered by replying, “If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach the imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true and not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner and let your sins be strong[or sin boldly] but let your trust in Christ be stronger and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.” (The Gospel Coalition)
Here Luther was not encouraging us to “behave anyhow,” as some of my Ghanaian friends would say. Rather, Luther was stressing the fact that no matter how hard we try, we are going to sin, but that God’s mercy and grace are far greater than our sins. We should do our best, realizing that we still will sin but aiming at following God’s will as found in his Word.
In Deuteronomy 6:5 God tells us, “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Now John is advising us to believe in the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another just as He (God) commanded us. Can we love perfectly? No. St. Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 that even the “good stuff” we do such as prophesying, giving words of knowledge, etc., is still imperfect. Only God’s love is perfect.
How do we know if we love God and His Son Jesus Christ? Jesus told his disciples, “If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.” John 15:10 When I was a child, I was very close to my Dad and I worked with him a lot on the farm. Our farm was not particularly safe; there were large animals that could run over me or chase me. I worked a great deal with farm machinery, some of it quite dangerous. If Dad told me to do something, I would follow his instructions because I loved him and I trusted that any orders he gave me would be for my good. Did I always carry out everything Dad told me perfectly? No. There were times when I tried and couldn’t make it happen.
Once we were attempting to give a sow, a mother pig an injection of antibiotic. We thought we had this huge animal safely confined in an A house and Dad was reaching through the back window of the A house to inject the sow behind the ear. I was supposed to hold a slatted gate over the door of the A house so that the sow couldn’t escape. At that time, I weighed 115 pounds soaking wet, and the sow weighed 300 pounds. I nearly got flattened when the sow decided to escape. Eventually, we did succeed in giving the injection; however, it took a wild dash across the field with me holding onto the left ear, Dad holding onto the right ear, and one of my brothers holding onto the tail! And somehow I was the one who wound up plunging the needle into the fat pad behind the sow’s ear!
Why is Luther’s comment important for us and how does it relate to John’s epistle? Luther encourages us to continue to try, even though we are human and we will not follow God perfectly. John also is encouraging us to continue to love God and to follow His commands with everything that is in us. Loving God is just like everything else; in the beginning, it is very hard and we become distracted very easily. But if we ask God for help, God will send His Holy Spirit to guide us and to help us do what we cannot do by ourselves. The more we really seek to love God and to follow His commandments out of love, the more fully we will love and exhibit the character of Christ. But there is an important caveat: We must not become so self – absorbed that we are only looking at ourselves. Actually, the more we follow Jesus and try to follow His commandments of love, the LESS attention we will pay to ourselves.
I have a friend who is a sincere Christian. When you are with this lady, she does not speak a great deal about Christ, but everything she does is done in love. My friend draws people to herself because of the love she demonstrates. And it is when people ask why she is different that she tells them about her Savior who loved her so much that He gave His life for her sins.
PRAYER: Father God, thank you for your mercy! Thank you for your grace! Thank you that you long for us to be made into your likeness. Help us to love you and to follow your ways of love all the days of our lives. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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