Meditation – Why does love matter?
by Isaac Overton
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” - John 15:12.
Why does love matter? As we discuss love and loving one another, what’s really at stake here? That’s the question before us in this meditation. I’m going to try and answer it very plainly right away: what is at stake is our very souls. You see, the answer to this question “What is love?” really is a matter of life and death, of heaven and hell.
Now maybe this sounds a bit extreme to you. Is it really this serious? And so I want to show you from scripture that it definitely is this serious. Our souls are on the line. So let me attempt to impress this upon you, starting with 1 John 3:11–15. These verses show us why love matters so much, for they show us what it is that’s really at stake here. Let’s read together starting in verse 11: “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” And just as an opening comment, you can see it there can’t you? This is a call and command that we have been given. Would we take this lightly? It is a word from the living God!
Let’s continue in verse 12: “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”
Now I trust that you can see the seriousness of what’s before us in these verses. You see it very clearly here: we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. And so it is no exaggeration for me to say that our souls are at stake here. If we don’t love, quite simply, we abide in death. We see the same thing repeated again in 1 John 4:20: “If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” This is sobering isn’t it? The cold hard fact is that if we don’t love each other, we don’t love God. Love for one another is one of the grounds on which we receive assurance of our salvation. If we say that we love God, and we don’t love each other, then our profession of faith is false. And so I cannot impress this upon you more clearly: this truly is a matter of life and death – we must love one another.
Now there are many other reasons I could give you as to why this question is important, though what we have seen already is quite enough to go on with! Nevertheless, let me quickly give a second reason as to why it matters that we know what love is, and thus also what it means to be living in love with one another. Picking up in John 13:34–35, we read: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Do you see the implication of Jesus’ words here? If we fail to love each other, our gospel witness will be powerless. In other words, love in action is the secret power of any healthy growing church. And so if we would see our churches grow to God’s glory, it is absolutely imperative that we grow in love. If we don’t, no one will be able to tell that we really are Jesus’ disciples. And so this is encouraging isn’t it as well? I trust that you desire to see your church increase, well, what we have in this passage is an essential ingredient in such growth: we must love one another.
Love matters. As well as praying that we may become more and more loving, which we saw was an obvious need in our last meditation, we must think more broadly as well. If we do not have love, we are nothing. If we do not love, we abide in death. As we consider the call to love one another, there is a lot at stake here. It is a sobering question to consider: Am I a loving person? The application at this point is a change of heart. Has the significance of love impacted our hearts? Do we sense the weight and importance of loving others? If you’re like me, you will find often times that your heart is hard to this. Even the knowledge that if I do not love, I am abiding in death – even that has little effect upon my heart at times. The application then before us is to ask that the Lord may break up the hardened ground of our hearts, that he may impress upon us the importance of love. We cannot pursue this whole-heartedly unless the Lord has first softened our hearts and caused us to hunger and thirst after righteousness. Let’s pray and ask – believingly – that the Lord would do this good work in our hearts as we move forward in our studies.
SDG.