My soul clings to you,Your right hand upholds me.
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
— 1 John 3:16,17
The Gospel is commanding. It takes dominion in our lives changing our hearts and our minds, conforming us into the image of Christ. We preach the Gospel, because God has ordained the preaching of the Gospel as a means of His grace. And he has established that His Gospel will be preached through those in the church, us. But even though God has ordained this, it is not mechanical. John doesn’t just say, we obey and do what is right. John says that we love. We love to preach the Gospel. And we love others. So where does this love come from?
John lays out the heart of the believer and where our motivation comes from to love the lost– the work of Christ in our own lives – “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” When we get this, when we get the depths of Jesus’ love for us, our hearts will be moved to love others. John demonstrates an integral connection between being loved by God and walking in the truth of the Gospel and the outward expression of the Gospel’s work in loving others. Our motivation for ministry to others comes from the security of the redemption we have in work of Christ.
I like the words of Jeremy Riddle’s song, Sweetly Broken –
At the cross you beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees
And I am
Lost for words so lost in love
I am sweetly broken holy surrender
As we are beckoned to Christ, we are “sweetly broken” and able to walk in “holy surrender”. It is no longer a work. It is trusting in the work of Christ, having faith in His work, laying all that we are down, and allowing His work to change us. In the Gospel, God boldly works in us through sanctification, with all certainty and determination to continue to grow in our hearts love for others. We are God’s handiwork. This is why John states that loving others must happen if we are in the Gospel. He says this because the Gospel is not weak, the work of Jesus is not weak, but certain to work love into our hearts. So, this love that we have growing in our hearts for others is a work of God and not our own. And God is not thwarted . . ..
This fact gives me much encouragement, when I don’t feel capable of evangelizing or loving others or even don’t feel like loving others. God is at work in me and He will accomplish it, because it is about His work, not mine. And even when I have those times, I don’t want to love others, I know He is at work in me.
Here is the deal; we are motivated not through looking at ourselves and working to muster up a love in ourselves. We are motivated, because He first loved us. He loves us! Do you get that? Let me repeat that. He loves us! He loves us so much that He brings us into His love for others. God has chosen the Gospel as the means for this love to be made manifest. And as we come to trust the Gospel, not just that He saves us from God’s wrath, but that God also brings us into His Kingdom and conforms us into the image of Christ; we will discover that love is growing in our hearts. We don’t look to ourselves; we come and look to Christ, believing in His work.
And as we step out in these truths knowing it is not about whether or not we fail, because God’s work does not fail. God has determined to do a good work in us, because He deeply loves us. . .. Paul says that all things are “Yes” in Christ.
This is the power of the Gospel as it sanctifies our hearts and conforms us into the image of Christ. The more we see the magnificence and grandeur of what Christ has done for us and grow in our understanding of the Gospel in our own lives, the more passion we will have as God takes us into His story and uses us to reach out to others and bring them into this love.
