Love demonstrates Christ

“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Demonstrates here is the Greek word synistemi, meaning to bring out, prove, and recommend. It is by love that we prove that Jesus exists. We recommend, prove and bring Him out by our love. Love here is agape love and it is an unconditional and active love. It is love in action.

There are different forms of love, but the one Jesus speaks of that is self-sacrificial and giving is agape love. There is also worldly love that is the emotion of love. This is a totally different kind of love and can look different with different situations.

Eros love, for example is a worldly love. It involves passion, lust and romance. When a man and woman are attracted to each other, they experience eros love. This can be good as it helps the bond of marriage. For instance, Jacob loved Rachel with an eros love but not Leah. As a result, he worked 14 years for his uncle earning her hand.

As an example of this love going awry, there is a story in 2 13 where Amnon, David’s oldest son, “fell in love” with Tamar, his half- sister. As a result, he manipulated and lied to get her in a vulnerable place and then raped her. After using and consuming her, he hated her and threw her outside, locking the door and humiliating her.

Philia love is another form of worldly love. We see this with strong friendships. This is the kind of love that Jonathan loved David. Jonathan was loyal and protected David. His soul became knit to David and he loved him as himself. Jonathan’s love started as a soul tie with a worldy philia love, but it ended in a sacrificial, giving that demonstrated agape love. He was loyal to David and willingly sacrificed his relationship with his father and gave up his position as next in line as king.

Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother was born for adversity. And Proverbs 18:24 says that a man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.”

Saul, on the other hand, took David in like his own son and loved him. But when his role was threatened as king by David, he quickly turned on him and turned to kill him. He chased him down to exterminate him as a threat. This was most likely mania love. Mania is an obsessive love that reaches a form of madness, jealousy, rivalry and paranoia as the other becomes the center of focus.

Finally, there is also storge love. This is the natural love that family members have for one another. It is the way that parents feel toward their children. Our hearts bond with those who are family and we nurture and protect them at all costs. This love can be good in healthy relationships and can also go awry.

With Saul, we see him at one moment trying to protect Jonathan and his position as next in line for king. But then at the next moment, when Jonathan does not make him look good (like eating honey) or opposes him (like disagreeing with him about David), he wants him dead.

Storge love does not only apply to immediate family but can also extend beyond this. As I adopted two boys, God gave me storge love for them both. For myself, I had to do a great deal of work in the area of storge love when I came to know the Lord because I was significantly overprotective of the ones I loved with storge love. Having a history of feeling that I needed to protect loved ones, if I was triggered by them being hurt, I was like a raging mamma bear.

Whether it is storge, philia, or eros love, our emotions can help lead us to actions of love in self-sacrifice. When we sacrifice for others, we are acting in a reflection of the Lord in agape love. This is the greatest reflection of real love and the opposite of a worldly consumerism love. It acts for others rather than looking to get something to gain. One is live giving and the other is life sucking.

Parenting is the most beautiful display of this life-giving love. As one cares for their children thanklessly, cleaning dirty diapers, staying up when they are sick, helping them with homework, speaking life and encouragement into them, teaching them responsibility and on and on, we demonstrate this life-giving way of living.

Hebrews 10:20 says that, “By His death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.”

Ever think about this? That the way that God opened up for us to have life, is life-giving. This is our new nature. We are given gifts and abilities to give life to everyone around us. And by reflecting this nature of Christ, we put Him on display, making Him known to the world.

It is the greatest demonstration of true love and it is the love that the Lord has for us. It is the verb of love in action for others. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love [agape] and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.”

In agape love, it is difficult to get off course as this kind of love covers a multitude of sin. This kind of love speaks loudly, “I am my brother’s keeper. “ That is the whole point of it.

Paul prays in Philippians 2:2-4, “Make my joy complete by being like mind [with Christ], having the same love, being one in spirit and one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interest of the others. In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

Here Paul is saying that this life-giving love of one another is the unity the fuels the Bride of Christ rising up into her position alongside the Lord. Paul also notes that unity demonstrates the maturity of the Bride.

David speaks of the unity in the body as being like holy anointing oil. In Psalm 133 he sings, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore.”

This speaks nothing of people getting it right or succeeding. It does not say that blessed are those who always get it right and do what is right, not offending anyone in their path. It also does not say that blessed are those who get to the top. Rather, it says that as a body, we will be blessed with an overflow of anointing when we come together as one and see each other through the eyes of Christ. When we love, forgive, and serve each other because we are all connected through the Spirit to Christ.

This means that we have to let go of offenses, judgement, competitiveness, putting ourselves aside to help others get ahead. When someone hurts us, we have to let of the offense and move on. What about the one who floundered in sin? They are not left out of this. How we treat the one who sins, even if they are unrepentant, is important.

I think of the situation with IHOPKC and the leader who is accused of having relations with some of the women that have worked for him. This is saddening. However, as the body of Christ, our objective needs to be to restore and not to isolate or shame the one who has caused harm as well as the one that is harmed. Restoration needs to be our goal.

But at the same time that we look to restore others, our job is also to hold people accountable and bring sin to the light. With the Catholic religion, their biggest downfall is that they were extending grace while allowing a person’s sin to stay hidden. There was a lack of accountability and lack of bringing the sin to the light that resulted in enablement of ongoing sin.

Sometimes I have to wonder if we ever will come to a place of maturity as the Bride of Christ. I think Heidi Baker said it best when she said that Americans eat their own flesh. Denominations judge each other out of immaturity of faith all the time rather than building each other up. We nit-pick and disqualify people with a different perspective of faith for superficial reasons.

It seems the one area that many denominations can agree upon is looking out for the least and the area of loving the hurting. We see this even outside the church in the corporate world as Christian leaders express their faith. I read that there is a revival within some corporate businesses that are finding their place in making a difference in people’s lives. Just recently, substantial changes in wages were approved by a car manufacturing labor union (UAW) that went on strike and pointed to Christ as the reason for consideration after only six weeks.

Lord, I pray that our love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that we may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:9-11)