Love God, Love Others
Our Lord’s exhortation to us is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections—some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,” even those towards whom we have no affection. The example our Lord gives us here is not that of a good person, or even a good Christian, but of God himself. “Be perfect, just as your father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real-life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interest in other people. Jesus says, “a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The true expression of Christian character is not in good doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit Divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the Supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised in the center of it all.
– Oswald Chambers
Right in the middle of this devotion, Chambers gives us this truth to embrace: The true expression of Christian character is not in good doing, but in God-likeness. Nothing expresses God-likeness more clearly than loving our neighbor. Of course, Jesus’ answer to the question ‘Who is my neighbor’ left little wiggle room. We are to love others, all others, with the love of our God and Father. This should be a frequent subject of our prayers: Lord, help me to love others as You love. –DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics