Saw a fight at the gas station this week. One auto rickshaw cut off a car as he waited in a long line. They started yelling at each other. Then one pushed the other. Then two other guys got involved. More yelling, more shoving. Then a fifth joined the fray and punches were thrown. One guy grabbed a 2x4. As the fight escalated our driver back out the car and took us to another gas station. It started me thinking - why do we act like this? What drives our anger as human beings? It was interesting timing as Brooke and I were set to teach from Mark 12 which identifies the focus of the believer’s life: to love God fully, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In thinking through these two commandments a few things became apparent.
First, the world has spent all of history attempting to love their neighbor, without first loving God. So much energy has been poured into NGO’s, political movements, unilateral peace treaties, etc. … and while these things have had some good effects, they inevitably become abused by men who are ruled by greed and a sinful nature. It is therefore in my estimation impossible for man to truly love man without first loving God.
Second, our interaction with man and response to our neighbor is the physical manifestation of our spiritual beliefs. Every religion makes verbal claims to their love for God, and to some extent for each other. So there is no real separation of religions by words. This separation occurs as these words are given life through our actions. As the book of James says, “Faith without works is dead”. If I had been one of those guys at the gas station how would my response have been different? If as a believer our response to our neighbor in both good times and bad is in direct connection to the relationship of love God desires us to have, then our response will be different from the rest of the world, and the world will take notice. It makes me want to think about my heart and my actions a little more carefully than perhaps I have before.
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2 comments:
Charlie shared this verse with me as we have been talking through how important it is to love and show our committment to Christ in our actions, so I want to share it with you.
1 John 3:18
"Dear children, let us not love in word or tongue but with actions and in truth."
Love you guys!
J, you have made a very true observation: It is IMPOSSIBLE for man to truly love (agape) man without loving God.
Of all the types of love only agape is selfless. All others are personally motivated. Without the knowledge and experience of the love of God it is impossible for man to do anything that it truly selfless. We are all creatures motivated to serve the self by our sinful nature.
The most benevolent of acts is selfish without the love of God and we can only know love by knowing Him and the love that He first showed to us.
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