Jesus Illustrated Love, and Faith, That Is Real (Jesus Lived the Real Life)

What Did Jesus Do?

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us,
and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 John 3:16

From the beginning, love has been the core of God’s’ Word, it is the essence of his message to us. The Old Testament can even be summed up in the two great commandments of the Law to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and might, and to love one’s neighbor as one’s self (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18; see Matthew 22:34-39). Yet it was painfully evident, pretty much from the beginning, that God’s people didn’t get it. God spoke love to his people through the Law and the Prophets, through Psalm and through Proverb, yet the people’s lives cried out, in effect, “Show us the love!” And show the love the Father ultimately did, in the person of the Son. To and for a people who were anything but loving and faithful, Jesus illustrated love, and faith, that is real.

John emphasized to the Church, his “little children,” that love was the content of the apostolic proclamation, it was “the message you have heard from the beginning” (1 John 3:11). The Church, every believer, had a choice to make. They could go the way of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel (1 John 3:12), or they could follow the example of Christ, who laid down his life for his brothers (1 John 3:16). Nothing could be clearer. One can take the life of one’s brothers, or one can preserve the life of the brothers. One can choose death, or pass from death to life (1 John 3:14). Cain was the slayer of his brother. Jesus was the lover of his brothers. Which are we?

Just as it was necessary for God to “show the love,” so too must God’s children, if our claim to faith be genuine. Talk is, after all, cheap. No one can say that God short-changed anyone with respect to love, for Jesus did not offer mere words for the salvation of God’s people, but gave his very life for ours. Even so, John exhorts believers in every time and in every place to demonstrate true love and true faith by more than “word or talk.” Real love and real faith is illustrated by how one lives “in deed and in truth.” For love and faith to be really real, they have to be, well, really lived. Jesus lived the real life. What kind of life are we living?

John wrote to the Church at a time when a lot of powerfully charismatic posers threatened to lead Christians away from real love for other believers, and away from real faith in a real Savior who really lived and died, and rose again. Following the posers would only lead from life back to death. The same kind of posers threaten the Church today, so John’s letter is just as timely as ever. Our only hope, today as it was in John’s day, is to love, to believe, to live as Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4