Six Elements OF LOVE TO CHRIST
by Peter MastersFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2003 No
4
The following ‘digest’ of the Editor’s Wednesday evening messages at the
2003 School of Theology reviews six components of love to Christ, all of which are vital
for the expression of love.
According to one of the best known and most admired chapters in the Bible
(1 Corinthians 13), love is the highest and greatest grace. It is also called the
‘more excellent way’, or the exceedingly excellent way (1 Corinthians 12.31).
We are told to ‘follow after love’, meaning that we are to press forward to
attain it as if running in a race (1 Corinthians 14.1). The great question for us
all is this - Do we make conscious and pressing advance in our love for Christ?
A growing army of new books teach about the nurture of love in marriage,
but few advise about love to Christ. If we knew about the latter, the former would probably
take care of itself, because love for Christ is the greatest spur to all branches of
sanctification.
But is not love for Christ given to us at conversion? It is, but not in full
measure. It must grow and be matured, and this is a lifelong process. Of the six components
or ‘departments’ of love which we shall identify here, perhaps only two or three are
consciously practised by most of us, leaving our love sadly limited. Take, for example, a
marriage in which one loves the other in terms of appreciation and affection, but not in
terms of expressed kindness, courtesy and helpfulness. Such partial love will be stunted and
may even fade and fail.
Or take the example of a mother who loves her baby in a sentimental way,
but who fails to care for the child in a practical way. Is this really love?
Love for Christ should be expressed in all its forms, with all our heart, soul,
strength and mind, as the Lord confirmed (Luke 10.27-28). He pointed to four
distinct expressions of love, arising from the affections, the spirit, the energy and drive of
the body, and from mental powers.
In his famous love chapter, Paul refers to the possession of spiritual
knowledge, faith, benevolence, and readiness to suffer for the faith, saying that these count
for nothing if they are not expressions of love for Christ.
Before looking at our six departments of love we must briefly define love for
God. It is a bond, or a uniting affection, full of appreciation and admiration. It takes
pleasure in the things of the Lord, identifying with His cause, and yielding to His Word. It
trusts Him and desires to please Him. When really alive it will do anything for Him, such as
taking knocks for Him and representing Him in witness. It will be loyal to Him, and will
defend His reputation. It will be the very opposite of self-pleasing.
It is worth remembering that the capacity to love exists in the human heart
even before conversion. By God’s kindness a capacity to love was left in the human
constitution after the Fall, although greatly impaired by sin. Love largely became self-love,
and the major element in courtship and marriage became biological love rather than
friendship love.
However, some higher notes in the expression of love have continued to be
struck, these being seen in selfless acts of courage and sympathy. The Lord has kept this
measure of real love alive in the human race, firstly, as a witness to man’s
sophistication (being so much higher than the animals), secondly, to preserve the race from
violence and total disaster, and thirdly, to provide a language for the Gospel. How would
we understand the love of God in providing redemption if we had no conception whatsoever
of sacrificial, compassionate love?
The highest love, however, comes with conversion to Christ, when the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts. This is a many-faceted love, far higher than sentiment
only.
In the eighteenth century, love for God was often called ‘the sacred fire’. A
well-known hymn of Charles Wesley desires it in these words:
O that in me the sacred fire
Might now begin to glow,
Burn up the dross of base desire
And make the mountains flow!
We too must seek to grow in love for the Lord - a love that shames
sin away, and longs to capture for Him the hearts of those around us. Six departments of a
believer’s love for Christ now follow.
1 REFLECTION AND RESPONSE
‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and
grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and
length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God’ (Ephesians 3.17-19).
This is probably the best-known department of love, but it is not always
carried out very thoroughly. It is the activity of reflecting upon the wonders and work of
Christ so as to stir our appreciation, gratitude, and love. We can have no great depth of love
for Christ if we make no effort to recall and think about His greatness and goodness. ‘We
love him, because he first loved us,’ says John, our love being a response to what He has
done.
Puritan Thomas Watson said that a greedy man has money dwelling in his
heart, meaning that money is in his thoughts. In the same way a believer has Christ dwelling
in his heart if the Saviour is frequently in his thoughts.
Do we spend time, especially in personal devotions, reflecting on the
character and work of Christ? We must see Him as the unequalled One, vastly superior to
all the supposed great people of this world put together.
We should ponder His eternal, unchanging affection for His people, and then
consider all the gifts He has freely given to us - the new nature, the spiritual faculty for
prayer and communion, the certainty of Heaven, healing for the sin-scars of character, light
and understanding through the Word, countless interventions in our lives in answer to
prayer, and so many other demonstrations of His love.
Reflection on the goodness of Christ should always lead to a response of
praise and thanksgiving, so that the flame of love is kept burning brightly. This category of
love to Christ is pre-eminent in the Lord’s Supper, of which the Lord said, ‘Do this in
remembrance of me.’
Worldly men frequently forget their wives, going out of the home to places
of leisure and entertainment to obtain solace. Tragically, believers sometimes do the same
in relation to the Lord, leaving off reflection and praise and looking away from Him for
comfort and uplift. The Lord’s response is, ‘I have somewhat against thee, because thou
hast left thy first love.’
This is the first and foundational department of love to Christ - regular
recollection of, and reflection upon, His greatness, goodness and work, accompanied by
humble gratitude, thanksgiving, expressions of love, and re-dedication.
2 THE EXERCISE OF FAITH
‘Putting on the breastplate of faith and love’ (1 Thessalonians 5.8).
‘Timotheus came . . . and brought us good tidings of your faith and love’
(1 Thessalonians 3.6).
‘And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love
which is in Christ Jesus’ (1 Timothy 1.14).
‘Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in
faith and love which is in Christ Jesus’ (2 Timothy 1.13).
‘Faith which worketh by love’ (Galatians 5.6). Note: Faith
precedes love; reveals and proves itself by love; is active in and by love - Ridderbos.
In all these verses of Scripture faith and love go hand in hand, and the one
nurtures and builds up the other. Genuine love for Christ is an exercise of faith, and faith is
a form of love, being its inseparable twin. Without faith, we can muster only sentimentality,
but faith ‘generates’ a love which is acceptable to the Lord.
To deeply trust Christ’s Word and promises (faith) is to love Him. To
trustingly accept His providential arrangements for our lives is equally a message of love to
Him. To turn away from discontentedness and chafing, and to renew our sincere faith in
Him, is the same as a statement of our love.
When we trust Christ and look to Him in hardship, persecution, sickness and
grief, that element of trust constitutes words of love, addressed to Him. If we weigh our
blessings against our trials, we engage in an act of love. Like courting couples who eagerly
anticipate opportunities to meet, believers see opportunities to express love to the Lord in
all the circumstances of life - by their trust.
When we read Hebrews 11 - the great chapter about faith - we
are also reading about love. Faith is the key factor, but it quickly expresses itself by love.
When Abraham obeyed the call of God we do not read that he specifically articulated
expressions of love, nor did he have to, because his obedient faith was itself an act and
expression of love. Some believers speak much of their love for God, yet they seem to have
little inclination to obey Him, but it is this that God especially reads as love.
Moses, by faith, chose to suffer affliction rather than to enjoy the pleasures
of sin, and his decision was an act of love. Faith works by love, and every challenging act of
faith on the part of Moses was a statement to God that he loved Him more than anyone or
anything else.
Do we think that the trust of believers is only a duty? We are wrong, for it is
love in action. Do we think that by our failure to exercise constant faith, we
alone will be losers? We are wrong, because Christ will be deprived of our love. The
exercise of faith on the part of believers is a department of love to Christ. Small faith is
small love, much grumbling is no love, but great trust in Him is beautiful and acceptable
love.
3 THE WALK OF HOLINESS
‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments’ (1 John
5.3).
‘And this is love, that we walk after his commandments’ (2 John 6).
‘Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that
which is good’ (Romans 12.9).
‘If ye love me, keep my commandments . . . he that hath my commandments,
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me’ (John 14.15 and 21).
The believer’s heart may be pictured as a home for the Lord to visit and
dwell in, and surely He will read our love not only by what we say, and how much we trust
Him, but also by the way we treat Him, our noblest guest. Is our heart fit for Him? Our third
category of love, therefore, is the pursuit of holiness. The believer who strives not to offend
the Lord is expressing real love for Him. The Christian who regularly examines his heart
and reviews his conduct out of respect for Christ, effectively loves Him.
The child of God who cries out for grace to keep away from pride, lies, hostility,
worldliness and self-love is uttering a special form of reverence and love even as he does
so.
We ask ourselves - What is my life really like? Do I give some of it to the Lord,
and keep a larger proportion for myself? Is some of my life yielded to distinctively worldly
pursuits and pleasures? If Christ hates and loathes sin, how can we love Him by parading it
before His eyes, and ignoring His commands?
Words of love are an empty sham if we do not long for greater holiness. In these
sad days there are numerous professing Christians who take little responsibility for their
conduct, but God will not accept their claims that they love Him. Moral sins are committed,
ethical wrongs practised, sins of attitude permitted, sins against the church allowed,
scriptural duties omitted, and worship and devotions curtailed. Sometimes the convicting
words of an old-time Methodist preacher are needed to challenge our hearts to renewed
seriousness in the walk of holiness:
Holy Spirit! pity me,
Pierced with grief for grieving Thee;
Present, though from sense apart,
Listen to a grieving heart.
Sins unnumbered I confess,
Of exceeding sinfulness;
Sins against Thyself alone,
Only to Omniscience known:
Deafness to Thy whispered calls,
Rashness midst remembered falls,
Transient fears beneath the rod,
Treacherous trifling with my God.
Tasting that the Lord is good,
Pining then for poisoned food;
At the fountains of the skies
Craving creaturely supplies.
Worldly cares at worship time;
Faithless aims in works sublime;
Pride, when God is passing by;
Sloth, when souls in darkness die.
O how lightly have I slept
With my daily wrongs unwept,
Sought Thy chidings to defer,
Shunned the wounded Comforter.
Still Thy comforts do not fail,
Still Thy healing helps avail;
Patient Inmate of my breast,
Thou art grieved, yet I am blest.
O be merciful to me,
Now in longing, Lord, for Thee!
Father, pardon through Thy Son
Sins against Thy Spirit done!
William Bunting, 1805-66
We cannot reach heights of perfection, but we must endorse, embrace and love
the standards and tastes of the Lord, ever striving to advance, and hating our failure.
Anything less is not love for Him.
On a positive note, we have a wonderful promise from the Lord to encourage us,
for He said: ‘He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them . . . shall be loved of my
Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him . . . and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him’ (John 14.21 and 23).
So we add our third category of love - the walk of holiness. Says John - ‘Let us
not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth’ (1 John 3.18).
4 FAITHFULNESS TO THE WORD
‘And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere
and without offence till the day of Christ’ (Philippians 1.9-10).
‘Whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected’ (1
John 2.5).
It is true that this fourth category of love for Christ overlaps the third to a
large extent, but it needs separate attention because God has very specific directions for all
aspects of life. He requires certain standards of worship, particular methods for church order
and evangelism, and also for many other aspects of spiritual living. We must be faithful to
these, for loyalty and obedience is a form of love.
God has also written the Bible as a means of providing sustenance and joy for our
souls day by day, and our spiritual well-being depends upon it. To see these things, to value
the infallible Word, to study it with humility, to believe it utterly, and to defend it loyally, is
to love the Giver.
Obedience to the Word is a love that readily conforms to God’s published desires
in all matters, including dress, lifestyle and worship. Glad and willing compliance
is love. If we are aware of any aspect of our conduct which is out of line with the
Word - such as the omission of a duty - we must reform, and to do so is an act of love.
If we find that something has crept into the life of our church, such as worldly
musical forms and instruments contrary to the blueprint of the Bible, we must be ready to
reform, and be glad to do so, and this will be an expression of love to Christ.
Compliance with Christ’s desires is always love, whereas non-compliance
constitutes a criticism of His wisdom, and a shadow that extends all the way from the
Garden of Eden to darken our spiritual walk and cloud our love.
‘Blessed are the undefiled in the way,’ says God, ‘who walk in the law of the
Lord. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole
heart’ (Psalm 119.1-2).
The Bible also teems with promised blessings of strength, insight, joy and
security to those who regularly read it as God’s Word. The Psalms, for
example, are redolent with expressions of delight in the Word; even to enjoy the reading of
God’s Word is an act and expression of love.
This fourth category of love should never be disregarded or neglected, or love
will be seriously blighted.
5 SHARING OF CHRIST’S WORK
‘Remembering without ceasing your . . . labour of love’ (1 Thessalonians
1.3).
‘For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love’
(Hebrews 6.10).
‘Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou
knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep’ (John 21.16).
The fifth category of love for Christ is involvement in His work, and pre-
eminently His concern for lost souls. It includes engagement in the work of winning
children, in intercessory prayer, in all opportunities for witness and service, and in
stewardship to accomplish these ends. Paul says that in stewardship we ‘prove the sincerity
of your love’ (2 Corinthians 8.8).
The service of the Lord is too often regarded as a most desirable pursuit but not
an essential one. After all, life is very full, and most believers bear many responsibilities
and burdens. However, our love cannot amount to much without involvement in the great
work of Christ, and solid identification with His concerns.
Certainly, there are some believers whose circumstances really do make this
difficult, and we understand that. C H Spurgeon felt tenderly for the many poor in his great
congregation who worked 18-hour days. To this day we have dear friends who must hold
down two and even three jobs to keep home and family together.
However, there are very many well-provided-for Christians in the evangelical
churches of this land who do nothing much for the Lord. They merely feather their nests and
take their ease, and we know this is so because we hear the sad stories of numerous pastors.
Getting believers to put their hands to the plough can be very difficult, for the
‘serve the Lord’ ethos of past years has died out in many churches. Sunday Schools cannot
be maintained because the faithful few are too few, and the majority of members are at ease
in Zion. But real love expresses itself wherever possible in dedicated labour, and any
Christian who withholds this, stints and rations his love to the Lord.
To pray for revival in these days surely requires that we pray first for a dramatic
reviving of the commitment and fire of believers. If we do not pray for this, we will be
asking the Lord for a revival which bypasses human instruments altogether, and that is not
God’s revealed way.
This fifth category of love says to us, in the words of Paul, ‘I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service’ (Romans 12.1).
6 EXTENT OF ENGAGEMENT
‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and
with all thy strength, and with all thy mind’ (Luke 10.27).
‘And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works’
(Hebrews 10.24).
This sixth heading is not strictly about a department of love, but about
the degree of love. It represents an essential challenge because only great love is fitting for our Saviour. How can we offer inadequate or modified
devotion, and call it love?
The degree or intensity of our commitment to the previous five categories is itself
an expression of love, and perhaps the most important. How much do we love the Lord?
If we are pastors, what is the intensity of our love for our calling? Some years
after C H Spurgeon had settled in London, he spoke of how his love for Waterbeach, the
scene of his youthful pastorate, had been so great that if he had spotted in a London street
one of the village dogs, he would have hugged it with delight. How much are we concerned
for our city, our community, the younger generation and our own flock? A passion for these
leaves little room for self, whether self-promotion or self-pity.
The intensity of our zeal for the Lord’s work, and our identification with His
concerns, is a great expression of our love for Him.
We all need to advance in this full-orbed love which crushes self, makes our
spiritual objectives glorious and sweetens even our setbacks. The aim of this study has been
to show that love for Christ is expressed in several ways, and each of these should be
recognised and willingly embraced as a duty.
We cannot pick and choose between them, nor should we rest content with
expressing only two or three of them. All are vital. All are due to Him. All combine like the
colours that make up the spectrum, to constitute a real love which honours and glorifies
Him, and through grace, lifts us nearer to Him.
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