LOVING LIKE CHRIST

If you watch television, listen to the radio, search the internet, or watch movies there is no doubt that mainstream media has had some effect on our thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and world view. As much as we fight to protect ourselves from such influence, at least what we are aware of, it is inevitable that an overlap will happen. If there is one area that has been dramatically impacted through this overlap would be the overall view and foundation of the ideology of LOVE. Love means many different things and to most has multiple interpretations. The Bible, however, is very clear on what love is, based on the perfect theology of love which was demonstrated from originator of love, God, through His son Jesus Christ.


If you study scripture, loving like Christ always refers to a love that requires sacrifices. 1 John 4:10 says “This is real love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins”. Real love, in essence, is not loving someone who already loved you but loving through sacrifice without condition. In fact scripture explains that only loving those who love you has no reward and is no different from the love that comes from a sinner. This type of love is so essential to the daily life of a believer that the removal of it, as we see in 1 Corinthians 13, turns the tongues of angels into a noisy gong, the gift of prophecy into meaning nothing, the faith to move mountains into doing nothing and every act of generosity into gaining nothing. Increasing the magnitude of loving or not loving is 1 John 4:8 which says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God”. This verse is not just saying that if you do not love, you do not know God but is actually saying that if you do not love – as in the way the Christ defines love, with sacrifice and without condition - then you do not know Christ.

If we truly know Him then we will love like Him. When is the last time you have loved an enemy or prayed for an individual who persecuted you? We must not let the world’s distortion of love effect the demonstration of God’s love through us. “No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expressions in us” – 1 John 4:12. God is dependent on us loving like Him so that the world can see the full expression of His love in us.