TRUE LOVE, WHAT IS IT?
What is true love? Can true love exist without action? Is just saying the words I love you enough? How is true love manifested?
We are continuing our look at the love of God for us and his plan (his mission) to bridge the gap between us and him. His mission is to bring us back into a loving relationship with him. He wants us to become His disciples and members of his family.
Thus, He calls for us to respond to His love. But our relationship with Him does not end with His call, for a call without action from the one being called has no value. What are we called to do?
In this series, we looked at what it means to love God and love others.
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You also may obtain the study guide for this series at Sabbath.School or ssnet.org
Let Us Inviting God’s Presence:
Holy Father, help us to understand what it means to love you and love others. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
God’s Mission, My Mission
(Lesson 7)
Mission to My Neighbor
Part 1
“Introduction”
Many are familiar with it. Many of us have read it or have heard someone read it. It is found in
Luke 10:27
27 So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Luke 10:27).
What does it mean to love God with all our soul, strength, and mind?
You see, love not put into action is not love. In fact, our love for God will grow weak if we say we love Him but fail to do as he has instructed us to do.
Love without action is not real love.
It’s called shallow love. It’s the kind of love that soon dies. It is love without commitment.
We can’t love God halfheartedly. So, if we say we love God, how do we show this love in action?
We must give Him our whole heart. He wants our total commitment: spirit, body, and mind.
It is not something that we do when we feel like it. It is something that we are to give him every day.
Anyone can say, “I love God,” but really loving Him requires that we consciously and intentionally use our daily strength and effort to love him.
But notice that in Luke 10:27, Jesus’ command to love God does not end there. He goes on to say and love your neighbor as you love yourself.
What did Jesus mean here?
We show our love to God by loving others. In other words, our love for others reflects our love for God.
Our love for others displays our love for God in action.
Notice what 1 John 4:20 says:
20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? (1 John 4:20).
Paul in Galatians 5:14 sums it up: “all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ ” (Galatians 5:14).
In this series, we will learn how to apply the critical Bible principle of love to our lives.
Continue to the next segment of this video —Part 2: The Question of Questions.
God’s Mission, My Mission
(Lesson 7)
Mission to My Neighbor
Part 2: The Question of Questions
Who are we? Why are we here? What happens when we die? These questions are the most important questions we mortal humans can ask.
But in Luke 10, a young lawyer comes to Jesus with the most crucial question of all.
Luke 10:25 says.
25 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25)
Although this is a serious question, notice that the Bible tells us that the lawyer asked this question because he really wanted to test Jesus. (Split)
Many people today are the same as this lawyer. They come to Jesus with doubt, skepticism, and even unbelief.
But, regardless of motive, Jesus can still touch their hearts.
Also, notice that although Jesus knew that the young man’s question was not genuine, He did not turn the lawyer away.
Jesus instead used the lawyer’s question as an opportunity to encourage this young man and the other people in the audience to search their own hearts.
Jesus knew why the lawyer asked the question.
Another critical point here is that even though He knew the lawyer’s motives, Jesus did not ignore him or show him disrespect.
As a member of this audience, we must ponder the same question the lawyer asked: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25).
This question should be the reason for everything we do. There is no other question more meaningful for us as humans, whose lives are like the morning dew.
James expresses this same idea in James 4:14; he compares our lives to the ”vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14).
Demonstrating the value of eternal life, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:30–32 underlines its significance, saying:
30 And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour?
31 I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
32 If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” (I Corinthians 15:30-32)
What value is there in this life if, when we die, we do not have the hope of rising from the grave to live forever?
The lawyer may have asked Jesus this question with the wrong motive, but Jesus wanted the lawyer to receive the promise of eternal life.
So, to spark an interest and call the young man and the people in the audience into a relationship with God, Jesus asked the lawyer a question designed to touch their hearts.
Notice here what it says about motives and how important it is for us to connect to the pure light so that we can effectively respond to the longings of the heart.
Let all remember that there is not a motive in the heart of any man that the Lord does not clearly see. The motives of each one are weighed as carefully as if the destiny of the human agent depended upon this one result. We need a connection with divine power, that we may have an increase of clear light and an understanding of how to reason from cause to effect. We need to have the powers of the understanding cultivated, by our being partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Let each one consider carefully the solemn truth, God in heaven is true, and there is not a design, however intricate, nor a motive, however carefully hidden, that He does not clearly understand.—Ellen G. White Comments, in The Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, vol. 3, p. 1160.
Like Jesus, our mission is to use every opportunity and circumstance to respectfully help others turn their lives around and give their hearts to God. How do we do this?
View my next video—–Part 3: Jesus’ Method and Response
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