ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

1 John 3:16-18

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

If we took a survey and asked everyone polled whether they love others, I am confident that nearly every person asked would respond that they do. I say this because I don’t think I have met anyone who didn’t have at least one person they could say that they cared for in life.

But what if we asked a follow up question, one that would pose a challenge to the one loving someone.

"How do you show you love others?"

You know, it’s easy to say we love somebody. Anyone can say the words but do our actions speak louder than those words?

This question serves as the lead in to today’s scripture passage as we continue to study from the third chapter of 1 John. Let’s look at those verses again here:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. Vv.16-18

Note here that true love, the kind of love that God expects requires behavior that reflects that love and in Christ Jesus, we find exactly what that behavior looks like.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.

As Christians, love must have a self sacrificial element to it. If Jesus loved Himself more than the sinners of the world, He wouldn’t have given up His life for anyone.

But that’s not what He did. Despite the deep anguish and suffering of crucifixion as He shouldered the burden of humanity’s sin that separated Him from His Father in Heaven all the way to death, Jesus willingly “laid down His life for us”. And this was after He said this to His disciples, which include all of us today:

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13

Jesus instructed His followers in regard to the highest form of love possible, a love that would lead one to die in order to save another, and then He actually showed them what that love looks like. His actions spoke loudly and far exceeded His mere statement.

Now, if we’re going truly be Christian and proclaim ourselves as such, then we need to be Christ-like in the way that we live and that includes giving freely of ourselves as we love others. Going back to our passage, John put it this way:

And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

Does this mean that every act of self surrender involves dying?

Of course not, although a Christian should be willing to do so if the opportunity presents itself.

You see, moving outside yourself in order to love and care for someone can include simple things like providing food or clothing for someone in need. John posed this question to reinforce this expectation associated with self sacrificial love:

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?

All that we have is what God has provided. That’s the truth and bottom line.

Our role as Christ believers is to be good stewards of what He has given, submitting fully to His will and way in regard to how we handle our “material possessions” which include our money. When we do this, when we relinquish the control of what we have to Him, then and only then will our actions be in step with His, actions that will show that His love is within us.

Friends, how will you respond to the scriptures today?

My prayer is that you will make a renewed commitment to love as Jesus did for when you do, you will align with the closing words in our passage today as John writes:

Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.