Evangelism: Loving God, Loving OthersSample

Love Without Obedience In The Grave

Many Christians know James 2:26 that “faith without works is dead” (NKJV). 

Most aren’t as familiar with the corollary: “faith without works lies in the grave beside love without obedience.” 

And our readings in 1 John highlight the truth behind this maxim. What does obedience look like in our text? Here are a few outtakes (TPT): 

4:7: “Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love.”

4:11: “Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life.”

4:20,21: Anyone can say, “I love God,” yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes Him a phony, because if you don’t love a brother or sister, whom you can see, how can you truly love God, whom you can’t see? For He has given us this command: whoever loves God must also demonstrate love to others.

Alright, we didn’t bring up this aspect of evangelism until the end of our short reading plan so that you will have read all the bits on love first. This is not a ‘teeth-clenching’, ‘grit-it-out’, duty-generated effort to notch up prayers from unsuspecting victims out of a misguided sense of obedience to God’s commands. Not at all. 

It’s more of a measure of our love for God and for others. If our love for God is healthy, we will love people. So if we’re not loving people, we’re not loving God well. 

And how might our love for others look? Love can be expressed in a myriad of ways. But as we’ve seen in the earlier days of this short reading plan, it looks like sacrificial preference toward salvation. 

The best expression of love to a sinner is to evangelize (and the best expression of love to a saint is to disciple). 

God’s mandate to evangelize punctuates the New Testament in different forms. Here are a few examples (TPT): 

Matthew 5:14-16: Your lives light up the world. Let others see your light from a distance, for how can you hide a city that stands on a hilltop? And who would light a lamp and then hide it in an obscure place? Instead, it’s placed where everyone in the house can benefit from its light. So don’t hide your light! Let it shine brightly before others, so that the commendable things you do will shine as light upon them, and then they will give their praise to your Father in heaven. 

1 Peter 3:15b: “And if anyone asks about the hope living within you, always be ready to explain your faith.”

Colossians 4:5,6: Walk in the wisdom of God as you live before the unbelievers, and make it your duty to make Him known. Let every word you speak be drenched with grace and tempered with truth and clarity. For then you will be prepared to give a respectful answer to anyone who asks about your faith.

2 Corinthians 5:18-20: And God has made all things new, and reconciled us to Himself, and given us the ministry of reconciling others to God. In other words, it was through the Anointed One that God was shepherding the world, not even keeping records of their transgressions, and He has entrusted to us the ministry of opening the door of reconciliation to God. We are ambassadors of the Anointed One who carry the message of Christ to the world, as though God were tenderly pleading with them directly through our lips. We tenderly plead with you on Christ’s behalf, “Turn back to God and be reconciled to Him.”

So, by this measure, is your love for God healthy?