So then, what is God's purpose in our lives, and how do we find it? Many Christians have the preconceived notion that living God's purpose means going to the mission field, serving in church or preaching. No doubt these are forefront areas of service to God, but I believe these are not the keys- we have to start from the basics. Before a child discovers his gift in running or swimming, he must learn how to walk. As "newborn babes" (1 Peter 2:2) in Christ, we too must first learn how to walk with God before we go on to live out God's purposes and calling for our lives. Please allow me to share a few key steps which I believe we must take, in living God's purpose. Sometimes these steps may seem so basic that they are often overlooked and their importance underestimated.. Yet the Bible contains very little about finding concrete ways to serve God's purpose, and about finding the calling in our lives, but plenty about these basic steps; time and again it stresses their importance.
Once again, Jesus our Teacher sums up everything beautifully for us. When asked what the greatest commandment was, He replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22: 37-40. Man is fickle and divided; if we were to try and figure out for ourselves what God's purposes were, we would definitely come up with very different ideas and perspectives. Thank God Jesus settled for us unambiguously how we are to live, in two simple commandments.
I believe the key word in both these commandments is love. Let's not underestimate the weight of this word. Throughout the Bible we hear many attributes of God- God is kind, just, merciful, righteous. But in only one place is God described as being something, and that something is love. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." 1 John 4:8. God is love! Take a moment to grasp that; no matter what we have believed God to be, what notions we have had of Him, He is love. And so we who profess to follow Him must learn to love.
Love- that word may seem familiar to some of us, and alien to others. It has been dramatised, sensationalised and scandalized by the world, to the point that it has lost some of its value, and become cheap. No matter how hard we try, our human ideas of love are but broken fragments of the perfect picture, disjointed pieces of the jigsaw of true love. We cannot apply our own ideas of love to God, because He is the origin of love. He is love. From Him and Him alone come all the bits and pieces of the knowledge of love- "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10. And how limited that knowledge is! It is like looking through the feeble telescope of our human nature, only being able to discern a shade here, a bit of light there, but never being able to grasp the fullness and majesty of it all. We must throw away all our own attempts to understand love. We must look to Love to understand love.
So what does it mean to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind"? First of all, and this comes naturally to most people, it is a deep feeling of what we would call "love", affection and gratitude to God for what He has done on the cross for us. "We love him, because he first loved us." But is it just a feeling? It cannot be, for a few reasons. Firstly, we all know that our feelings and emotions are as volatile and unpredictable as the High Sea; one moment we may feel a great affection for God, while the next moment He seems to be miles away from our hearts as we indulge in some sin. If loving God was just feeling affection for Him, then how weak and feeble our love would be! Secondly, nowhere in the Bible, as far as I know, is love described as a feeling. Not by Moses, not by Paul, not be Jesus. Paul wrote a famous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, that most people would have heard or seen before, describing the attributes of love. Do read it, it is magnificent. But interestingly, and importantly, in the most accurate King James Version "love" was not the word that Paul used; it was "charity", which was translated into "love" in later versions like the NKJV and NIV. This suggests to us that the love Paul is speaking of here is more than just the feeling of "love" that we are familiar with, that he calls it "charity" - it is not a mere emotion, but an actual act of the will. And indeed, some of the characteristics described in 1 Corinthians 13- "Charity suffereth long...envieth not... seeketh not her own... rejoiceth not in iniquity..." are traits that are not naturally present in our natural feeling of love. Just look how much sin and adultery has been committed in the name of love! Just look how jealous and vengeful "lovers" can get!
So love for God is not just a feeling; it entails much more. What then? We must look to the Lord, and to His Word. Characteristically, Jesus gives us the answer straight to our faces- "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15. The commandment to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" was first delivered to the Israelites many years before, and what did God demand of them at the time? The same thing that Jesus demanded- "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?" Deuteronomy 10: 12-13. During the time of the Israelites God made clear His Ten Commandments; when Jesus came, he too, through his famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and his numerous other teachings set our very clear guidelines and commandments on how to live our lives, which are just as applicable for us today as they were for the people then. Clearly, keeping His commandments is an indispensable part of loving God. Often we take this truth for granted in our lives; we think it is alright that we flaunt a commandment here, disobey another one there, as long as we still feel that love for God. Loving God means keeping his commandments willingly. No man is perfect and has not sinned, but we are all familiar with those times when we know what God would have wanted us to do, but we do not do simply because we do not want to, or we feel that it is of little consequence. If we loved God, we would.
Can we try to understand why it is this way? "Charity... seeketh not her own." If we loved God we would not seek glory for ourselves but glory for Him, and Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16. When we obey His commandments, God is glorified. Secondly, God hates sin. In fact I am not sure if "hates" is a sufficient word to describe God's feelings towards sin. We as humans can only hate something when we have come into contact or interacted with that something, but God has never sinned. God is righteous and perfect; sin has never touched him, sin can never touch him. Sin is the direct opposite of what He is, and its existence is a defiance to His perfect nature; oh how He must abhor it! So when we sin, we anger Him, and at the same time break His heart. If you were a father, how would you feel if your son, whom you have poured so much love and energy into, goes out and starts stealing or cheating, or worse? Now take that feeling, and try and extrapolate it to how a perfect and infinitely loving Father would feel. We can catch a glimpse, but it is terrifying enough.
I believe that there is another part of loving God, and that is seeking a very personal relationship with Him, to know Him deeply. Any human relationship requires time and effort to grow and flourish, and since we are created in His image, seeking a personal relationship with Him would of course require time and effort as well, specifically in reading His Word and in prayer. Besides keeping God's commandments, the Israelites were also instructed to meditate regularly, in fact all the time, on God's word- "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Deuteronomy 6: 7-8. Jesus, when tempted in the desert by Satan, replied "It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." Jesus Himself lived and breathed upon God's Word, which for Him was the Old Testament. Many Christians say that it is difficult to hear God in life, to discern His thoughts and to know His will. But we forget that sitting in our rooms, on our tables, is the greatest store of wisdom and guidance that man has ever known- the Bible, the Living Word. If we would only put more time and effort into reading and meditating upon His Word we would soon see that God speaks primarily through the Bible, and that it speaks to any and every situation in my life, to the point that we can live "by every word of God". I will definitely share my testimonies about the Bible soon. Prayer comes easily for most people, though if conducted in the comfort of our beds will probably lead us on to dreamland- a warning! But more importantly, we must bear in mind that prayer is not a monologue, where we simply come and bring all our requests to Him. Prayer is not a wish-list, and God is not a vending machine. Prayer is intimate communion with God, that through Jesus Christ our souls can link up with God- for that reason, do not underestimate the importance of prayer! We are literally getting in touch with God! And what ensues is a two-way conversation- we bring our requests, our doubts, our sorrows, our thanksgiving before Him, and He too speaks too us, directly to our soul. I confess that I am still learning in that area of hearing God in prayer. But I have heard many others testify of that still, small voice in their heard, or sometimes even a vision, and I do not doubt them. And when we pray, God works. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16. And since prayer is so wonderful and essential, why confine it to the wee hours of the morning or deeps of the night? Take every and any chance to pray, in every and any situation, big or small. I could go on and on about the power of prayer, and I believe one day day I will write about that. But don't take it from me, take it from Jesus Himself- "And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." Luke 6:12. Jesus understood the power and importance of prayer; need we even doubt?
And so we come to Jesus' second commandment- "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". Have you ever wondered why Jesus gave two commandments, when he was only asked for one? Because the two commandments are as inseparable as the sea and the shore. And why does loving God come before loving man? Because where there is the former, there must be the latter. Loving man is not an option; it is a consequence that flows naturally from our love of God. Most men are born with an innate love of other men, that is unquestionable. No man can love God until he comes to know God, when that man begins to love God, he must begin to love other men as well. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." 1 John 5:1. I know the language is a bit hard to understand, so in the NIV, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well." Reading on, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." Simply put, when we keep God's commandments, we are loving others- this is such a revelation! So often we have thought of obeying God's commandments for the sake of being righteous, but that is not the complete picture. And it is not hard to understand at all why- the second half of the Ten Commandments, and the bulk of Jesus's teaching on earth, is all about loving and serving our neighbours. Neighbours like our friends, neighbours like the poor robbed man we see lying by the side of the road. Now we see why the two commandments are inseparable, and how the first commandment flows so naturally and clearly, like a mountain stream, into the second. When we love God we love man, because God's commandments are about loving man, and more importantly, God loves man. God is love. It is true, you may say, my father loves me very much and I love him, but I don't really love my brother or sister. In fact I'm often quite annoyed with them! But then, if I loved my father, I would understand the depth of love that he has for my brother and I would begin to appreciate how much sacrifice he has made for us, and how he loves us despite our failures and weaknesses and flaws. And that, as I love my father and learn from him, I would begin to realise that love is not at all about judging my brother's character or picking on his flaws, but realising that there is something in him, who he is, that makes my father love him so much, and for which I too, should love him for. It is the same with God. Every person, every person, is created special and loved so dearly by God, and so should also be loved dearly by us. "Beloved, let is love one another: for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." 1 John 4:7.
Jesus gave a very perplexing and difficult saying in the middle of His Sermon on the Mount. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48. People have stumbled on this- how can we ever be perfect? However, taken in context, it is the ending of a segment which begins, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies..." Matthew 5: 43-44. It is a segment on loving our neighbours. I believe that the meaning of the verse as Jesus gave is this- when we learn to love all people, friend or foe, we will begin to understand what perfection is, because we have carried out the two commandments that go hand-in-hand- loving God, and loving man. I dare not say attain perfection, but I believe when we start to love man as Jesus describes, that is the closest to God we will ever come on this earth. Practically, have we not experienced a taste of that before? The joy that comes when we have genuinely helped and blessed another person is one that is distinct from all other joys, unique in its flavour, and rooted in its eternality. It is a kind of joy that makes you feel as though your whole life has been leading you to that point, and that all has been worthwhile. I experienced that kind of joy when I helped to lead a woman to Christ in Thailand, and the joy is as vivid in my heart as it was then. "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:12.
And the amazing thing about it is that the love of God knows no bounds. While God's love compels us to love man, the loving man also teaches us to love God even more and more, because we can see with our own eyes the power of the love that God has poured into this world, through His children. "No man hath seen God at any time", but we can behold and wonder at His love, working all around us and through us, and naturally fall deeper and deeper in love with the God who is love.
And so practically, how do we love man? All in all, I believe it is the act of consciously and knowingly building our lives around other people. Instead of just seeking our own joy, we seek to bring joy to others; we learn to look out not just for ourselves, but more for others; we learn to help and encourage others when they are facing problems in their lives, or in their faith; we learn to sacrifice our own time, energy, pleasure and needs for the well-being of others. I can find no clearer guide than our faithful 1 Corinthians 13. "Charity suffereth long..." We must learn to be patient and tolerant of each other, bearing with each others' faults and shortcomings, and not judging. "is kind..." We must be kind with a willing heart, much unlike the contrived acts of kindness that embodied the Singapore Kindness Movement years ago in primary school. "envieth not..." We must not be jealous and seek to take away the things that our friends have. "vaunteth not itself..." We do not love for the sake of being seen, so that our love may be splashed across the headlines or seen by many. "is not puffed up..." We must not be proud towards others, but always walking in humility with the servants' attitude that Jesus portrayed and preached. "Doth not behave itself unseemly..." We must not treat our brothers and sisters in a unruly, rough, or disrespectful manner, but rather in peace. "Is not easily provoked...." Often we lash out angrily against others when we are wronged, or when we are in disagreement over some matter- this must be controlled. "thinketh no evil..." If we start thinking about sinning against a brother or sister, then we know we are not loving. "Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth..." This is an important aspect of friendship- a loving friend should be willing to criticise and warn his friend when he is going astray, and help him to find the right path, and definitely not encourage him in it. "Beareth all things. believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." Love holds on to the ideals of life, kinship and friendship, and ultimately to God, in the face of all difficulties and struggles. Friends do not abandon each other in times of trouble- they stick right down to the wire. By this we know that we have love- that it does not go away with time, not with foul weather, nor with sorrow. It does not even go away when friends upset and hurt each other. It is everlasting.
The Bible gives many other guidelines on how to love our neighbours. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Phillipians 2: 3-4. Loving man also encompasses loving and caring for those who are poor, sick and needy, in whatever capacity that we can. Again Jesus shows us the unbreakable link between loving man and loving God, in Matthew 25: 34- 46- "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (v. 37-40) Caring for such people is an act of love unto God Himself. "But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" 1 John 3: 17. Remember, every man is special, and every person is valuable to God. As youths with little financial resources we may find it difficult to contribute in this area, but we can do whatever we can in service, and let us bear this deeply in mind as we grow up.
Lastly, I believe there is one last way in which we can love man, and this way is the most important one of all. It none other than the act of not just bringing our love into others' live, but bringing God's love to those who have it not- evangelism. This word sends shudders down the spines of many Christians, as images of tract-wielding fanatics going from door to door flash up in their minds. But cast away all your mental models. Evangelism is the simple act of bringing the Gospel to people, in love, and it can be done anywhere- in schools, in the workplace, in the army camp, in the forest; in any way- through direct sharing, through ministering and counselling, through emotional support; and at any time- during lunch or before sleep, during childhood or at the deathbed. And I believe that this is the greatest expression of love that we can ever make, because it is bringing the love of God, yes, the wonderful, indescribable, infinite love of God, into another's heart, and opening the door to a lifetime and beyond of joy and contentment. "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2:4.
God is love. Amen.
Once again, Jesus our Teacher sums up everything beautifully for us. When asked what the greatest commandment was, He replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 22: 37-40. Man is fickle and divided; if we were to try and figure out for ourselves what God's purposes were, we would definitely come up with very different ideas and perspectives. Thank God Jesus settled for us unambiguously how we are to live, in two simple commandments.
I believe the key word in both these commandments is love. Let's not underestimate the weight of this word. Throughout the Bible we hear many attributes of God- God is kind, just, merciful, righteous. But in only one place is God described as being something, and that something is love. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." 1 John 4:8. God is love! Take a moment to grasp that; no matter what we have believed God to be, what notions we have had of Him, He is love. And so we who profess to follow Him must learn to love.
Love- that word may seem familiar to some of us, and alien to others. It has been dramatised, sensationalised and scandalized by the world, to the point that it has lost some of its value, and become cheap. No matter how hard we try, our human ideas of love are but broken fragments of the perfect picture, disjointed pieces of the jigsaw of true love. We cannot apply our own ideas of love to God, because He is the origin of love. He is love. From Him and Him alone come all the bits and pieces of the knowledge of love- "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10. And how limited that knowledge is! It is like looking through the feeble telescope of our human nature, only being able to discern a shade here, a bit of light there, but never being able to grasp the fullness and majesty of it all. We must throw away all our own attempts to understand love. We must look to Love to understand love.
So what does it mean to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind"? First of all, and this comes naturally to most people, it is a deep feeling of what we would call "love", affection and gratitude to God for what He has done on the cross for us. "We love him, because he first loved us." But is it just a feeling? It cannot be, for a few reasons. Firstly, we all know that our feelings and emotions are as volatile and unpredictable as the High Sea; one moment we may feel a great affection for God, while the next moment He seems to be miles away from our hearts as we indulge in some sin. If loving God was just feeling affection for Him, then how weak and feeble our love would be! Secondly, nowhere in the Bible, as far as I know, is love described as a feeling. Not by Moses, not by Paul, not be Jesus. Paul wrote a famous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, that most people would have heard or seen before, describing the attributes of love. Do read it, it is magnificent. But interestingly, and importantly, in the most accurate King James Version "love" was not the word that Paul used; it was "charity", which was translated into "love" in later versions like the NKJV and NIV. This suggests to us that the love Paul is speaking of here is more than just the feeling of "love" that we are familiar with, that he calls it "charity" - it is not a mere emotion, but an actual act of the will. And indeed, some of the characteristics described in 1 Corinthians 13- "Charity suffereth long...envieth not... seeketh not her own... rejoiceth not in iniquity..." are traits that are not naturally present in our natural feeling of love. Just look how much sin and adultery has been committed in the name of love! Just look how jealous and vengeful "lovers" can get!
So love for God is not just a feeling; it entails much more. What then? We must look to the Lord, and to His Word. Characteristically, Jesus gives us the answer straight to our faces- "If ye love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15. The commandment to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" was first delivered to the Israelites many years before, and what did God demand of them at the time? The same thing that Jesus demanded- "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?" Deuteronomy 10: 12-13. During the time of the Israelites God made clear His Ten Commandments; when Jesus came, he too, through his famous Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and his numerous other teachings set our very clear guidelines and commandments on how to live our lives, which are just as applicable for us today as they were for the people then. Clearly, keeping His commandments is an indispensable part of loving God. Often we take this truth for granted in our lives; we think it is alright that we flaunt a commandment here, disobey another one there, as long as we still feel that love for God. Loving God means keeping his commandments willingly. No man is perfect and has not sinned, but we are all familiar with those times when we know what God would have wanted us to do, but we do not do simply because we do not want to, or we feel that it is of little consequence. If we loved God, we would.
Can we try to understand why it is this way? "Charity... seeketh not her own." If we loved God we would not seek glory for ourselves but glory for Him, and Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16. When we obey His commandments, God is glorified. Secondly, God hates sin. In fact I am not sure if "hates" is a sufficient word to describe God's feelings towards sin. We as humans can only hate something when we have come into contact or interacted with that something, but God has never sinned. God is righteous and perfect; sin has never touched him, sin can never touch him. Sin is the direct opposite of what He is, and its existence is a defiance to His perfect nature; oh how He must abhor it! So when we sin, we anger Him, and at the same time break His heart. If you were a father, how would you feel if your son, whom you have poured so much love and energy into, goes out and starts stealing or cheating, or worse? Now take that feeling, and try and extrapolate it to how a perfect and infinitely loving Father would feel. We can catch a glimpse, but it is terrifying enough.
I believe that there is another part of loving God, and that is seeking a very personal relationship with Him, to know Him deeply. Any human relationship requires time and effort to grow and flourish, and since we are created in His image, seeking a personal relationship with Him would of course require time and effort as well, specifically in reading His Word and in prayer. Besides keeping God's commandments, the Israelites were also instructed to meditate regularly, in fact all the time, on God's word- "And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Deuteronomy 6: 7-8. Jesus, when tempted in the desert by Satan, replied "It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." Jesus Himself lived and breathed upon God's Word, which for Him was the Old Testament. Many Christians say that it is difficult to hear God in life, to discern His thoughts and to know His will. But we forget that sitting in our rooms, on our tables, is the greatest store of wisdom and guidance that man has ever known- the Bible, the Living Word. If we would only put more time and effort into reading and meditating upon His Word we would soon see that God speaks primarily through the Bible, and that it speaks to any and every situation in my life, to the point that we can live "by every word of God". I will definitely share my testimonies about the Bible soon. Prayer comes easily for most people, though if conducted in the comfort of our beds will probably lead us on to dreamland- a warning! But more importantly, we must bear in mind that prayer is not a monologue, where we simply come and bring all our requests to Him. Prayer is not a wish-list, and God is not a vending machine. Prayer is intimate communion with God, that through Jesus Christ our souls can link up with God- for that reason, do not underestimate the importance of prayer! We are literally getting in touch with God! And what ensues is a two-way conversation- we bring our requests, our doubts, our sorrows, our thanksgiving before Him, and He too speaks too us, directly to our soul. I confess that I am still learning in that area of hearing God in prayer. But I have heard many others testify of that still, small voice in their heard, or sometimes even a vision, and I do not doubt them. And when we pray, God works. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16. And since prayer is so wonderful and essential, why confine it to the wee hours of the morning or deeps of the night? Take every and any chance to pray, in every and any situation, big or small. I could go on and on about the power of prayer, and I believe one day day I will write about that. But don't take it from me, take it from Jesus Himself- "And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God." Luke 6:12. Jesus understood the power and importance of prayer; need we even doubt?
And so we come to Jesus' second commandment- "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". Have you ever wondered why Jesus gave two commandments, when he was only asked for one? Because the two commandments are as inseparable as the sea and the shore. And why does loving God come before loving man? Because where there is the former, there must be the latter. Loving man is not an option; it is a consequence that flows naturally from our love of God. Most men are born with an innate love of other men, that is unquestionable. No man can love God until he comes to know God, when that man begins to love God, he must begin to love other men as well. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." 1 John 5:1. I know the language is a bit hard to understand, so in the NIV, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well." Reading on, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." Simply put, when we keep God's commandments, we are loving others- this is such a revelation! So often we have thought of obeying God's commandments for the sake of being righteous, but that is not the complete picture. And it is not hard to understand at all why- the second half of the Ten Commandments, and the bulk of Jesus's teaching on earth, is all about loving and serving our neighbours. Neighbours like our friends, neighbours like the poor robbed man we see lying by the side of the road. Now we see why the two commandments are inseparable, and how the first commandment flows so naturally and clearly, like a mountain stream, into the second. When we love God we love man, because God's commandments are about loving man, and more importantly, God loves man. God is love. It is true, you may say, my father loves me very much and I love him, but I don't really love my brother or sister. In fact I'm often quite annoyed with them! But then, if I loved my father, I would understand the depth of love that he has for my brother and I would begin to appreciate how much sacrifice he has made for us, and how he loves us despite our failures and weaknesses and flaws. And that, as I love my father and learn from him, I would begin to realise that love is not at all about judging my brother's character or picking on his flaws, but realising that there is something in him, who he is, that makes my father love him so much, and for which I too, should love him for. It is the same with God. Every person, every person, is created special and loved so dearly by God, and so should also be loved dearly by us. "Beloved, let is love one another: for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." 1 John 4:7.
Jesus gave a very perplexing and difficult saying in the middle of His Sermon on the Mount. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48. People have stumbled on this- how can we ever be perfect? However, taken in context, it is the ending of a segment which begins, "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies..." Matthew 5: 43-44. It is a segment on loving our neighbours. I believe that the meaning of the verse as Jesus gave is this- when we learn to love all people, friend or foe, we will begin to understand what perfection is, because we have carried out the two commandments that go hand-in-hand- loving God, and loving man. I dare not say attain perfection, but I believe when we start to love man as Jesus describes, that is the closest to God we will ever come on this earth. Practically, have we not experienced a taste of that before? The joy that comes when we have genuinely helped and blessed another person is one that is distinct from all other joys, unique in its flavour, and rooted in its eternality. It is a kind of joy that makes you feel as though your whole life has been leading you to that point, and that all has been worthwhile. I experienced that kind of joy when I helped to lead a woman to Christ in Thailand, and the joy is as vivid in my heart as it was then. "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us." 1 John 4:12.
And the amazing thing about it is that the love of God knows no bounds. While God's love compels us to love man, the loving man also teaches us to love God even more and more, because we can see with our own eyes the power of the love that God has poured into this world, through His children. "No man hath seen God at any time", but we can behold and wonder at His love, working all around us and through us, and naturally fall deeper and deeper in love with the God who is love.
And so practically, how do we love man? All in all, I believe it is the act of consciously and knowingly building our lives around other people. Instead of just seeking our own joy, we seek to bring joy to others; we learn to look out not just for ourselves, but more for others; we learn to help and encourage others when they are facing problems in their lives, or in their faith; we learn to sacrifice our own time, energy, pleasure and needs for the well-being of others. I can find no clearer guide than our faithful 1 Corinthians 13. "Charity suffereth long..." We must learn to be patient and tolerant of each other, bearing with each others' faults and shortcomings, and not judging. "is kind..." We must be kind with a willing heart, much unlike the contrived acts of kindness that embodied the Singapore Kindness Movement years ago in primary school. "envieth not..." We must not be jealous and seek to take away the things that our friends have. "vaunteth not itself..." We do not love for the sake of being seen, so that our love may be splashed across the headlines or seen by many. "is not puffed up..." We must not be proud towards others, but always walking in humility with the servants' attitude that Jesus portrayed and preached. "Doth not behave itself unseemly..." We must not treat our brothers and sisters in a unruly, rough, or disrespectful manner, but rather in peace. "Is not easily provoked...." Often we lash out angrily against others when we are wronged, or when we are in disagreement over some matter- this must be controlled. "thinketh no evil..." If we start thinking about sinning against a brother or sister, then we know we are not loving. "Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth..." This is an important aspect of friendship- a loving friend should be willing to criticise and warn his friend when he is going astray, and help him to find the right path, and definitely not encourage him in it. "Beareth all things. believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." Love holds on to the ideals of life, kinship and friendship, and ultimately to God, in the face of all difficulties and struggles. Friends do not abandon each other in times of trouble- they stick right down to the wire. By this we know that we have love- that it does not go away with time, not with foul weather, nor with sorrow. It does not even go away when friends upset and hurt each other. It is everlasting.
The Bible gives many other guidelines on how to love our neighbours. "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." Phillipians 2: 3-4. Loving man also encompasses loving and caring for those who are poor, sick and needy, in whatever capacity that we can. Again Jesus shows us the unbreakable link between loving man and loving God, in Matthew 25: 34- 46- "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (v. 37-40) Caring for such people is an act of love unto God Himself. "But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" 1 John 3: 17. Remember, every man is special, and every person is valuable to God. As youths with little financial resources we may find it difficult to contribute in this area, but we can do whatever we can in service, and let us bear this deeply in mind as we grow up.
Lastly, I believe there is one last way in which we can love man, and this way is the most important one of all. It none other than the act of not just bringing our love into others' live, but bringing God's love to those who have it not- evangelism. This word sends shudders down the spines of many Christians, as images of tract-wielding fanatics going from door to door flash up in their minds. But cast away all your mental models. Evangelism is the simple act of bringing the Gospel to people, in love, and it can be done anywhere- in schools, in the workplace, in the army camp, in the forest; in any way- through direct sharing, through ministering and counselling, through emotional support; and at any time- during lunch or before sleep, during childhood or at the deathbed. And I believe that this is the greatest expression of love that we can ever make, because it is bringing the love of God, yes, the wonderful, indescribable, infinite love of God, into another's heart, and opening the door to a lifetime and beyond of joy and contentment. "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." 1 Timothy 2:4.
God is love. Amen.
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