Lenses of Love: Action
Love is action.
Genuine loves causes action. Genuine love motivates obedience. Allegience without some level of response is not real allegiance. To run at the moment of trouble is abandonment, not allegiance. So we see how all of these are connected. Love requires actions in light of it.
John 14:15,
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
We are called to love God, and obey his commandments. We need to have both. 1 Corinthians warns us of the unfruitfulness of actions without love.
1 Corinthians 13:1–3,
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
You can do actions without love, but you cannot love without action. Affection without action is not love.
James 2:15–16,
“If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 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?”
John lays it out plainly for us also in 1 John 5:3,
“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
If we love God it isn’t that we just have to obey, but that we want to obey.
Henry Scougal,
“Though holy and religious persons do much eye the law of God, and have a great regard unto it, yet it is not so much the sanction of the law, as its reasonableness, and purity, and goodness, which do prevail with them. They account it excellent and desirable in itself, and that in keeping of it there is great reward; and that divine love wherewith that are actuated, makes them become a law unto themselves”
That is what it looks like to love God, to fear Him, to believe Him, to see his reasonableness and goodness in all that he does and says.
So what actions can we take to increase our love for God?
Here’s three things, and the result!
1. Spend time in His word (with Him).
Psalm 16:5–9,
The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
I have set the LORD always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
2. Trace enjoyments in the world back to the source.
As stated before: Learn to look behind the gifts. The crack of the leather, the sound of a puck on ice, the early morning fog on a lake or during a run.
All of these are gifts that have been given. Learn to look behind the gift.
When your heart enjoys and warms to these gifts, give thought and time for it to warm toward God as well. A main piece of this is simply increasing our awareness, and seeing that it’s true.
3. Know that you can increase your love for God.
Deuteronomy tells us to “Learn the fear of the Lord” and “teach it to our kids.” But isn’t fear just a reaction we can’t control, an emotional response to a circumstance? Scripture speaks in a way that it can be learned, developed, even pursued. We can learn to fear the Lord, and we can learn to love the Lord.
We don’t just sit by hoping it happens. We are commanded to love God and delight in Him. And ultimately, we have no excuse if we do not love God, and find him worthy of our affection, and allegiance, and actions. That is on us. We are not innocent bystanders waiting for him to change our emotions or affections. We need His Spirit to help us, and He has given us his Spirit, and with his Spirit we have the ability to learn to love and fear the Lord.
By beholding God’s love, you will increase the capacity and purity of your love.
We are changed by what we love, or as it is said: “we become like what we behold.”
“where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”
If we love twisted things, our capacity to love will reflect that, it will weaken. If you love ugly things, your heart will become ugly. If you love pure and lovely things, your heart will become more pure, more lovely, and also increases in capacity to love and behold those things!
If we love God, who is love, then our love, and our whole being will become like him. We will be increasingly able to love lovely things, to delight in pure things, to have a heart that works fully and rightly — a heart that is working at its full potential, not crippled or poisoned by this world, or things that belong to our old man, with its passions and desired that Jesus died to deliver us from.
Your heart can be hardened, and it can be softened, it can purified, or it can be poisoned, it can grow in capacity for love and joy, or it can shrivel. So that stakes are high but are filled with hope.
We must be men who don’t just intellectually assent to loving God, or can articulate clearly the need to love God, but who actually love God.
We have received, and continue to receive a Niagara Falls sized dumping of love. As we understand that, God will change us. As we learn to love, God will have all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, and all of our mind. Our love will grow greater and purer as the love of Christ, always before us.
A full picture of love includes, our affections, our allegiance, and our actions. Let’s discuss.
Discussion
Do you agree that the things we love have a shaping affect on us? Have you personally experienced that?
Do you agree that we can develop our love for God? What is one next step for you to learn the love of God?
