Long On Faith - Short On Love

I wonder if we mostly conservative Christians do not come short on the love of God. I know I do. For years my main occupation has been with faith. Do I truly believe God? Do I transmit to others “the faith once delivered to the saints,” – Christ according to the Scriptures? I have no intention of belittling that. Forty years ago I fought a core battle whether I would stand on the Bible as God’s inerrant revelation of Himself to fallen man, despite questions some could raise to which I had no answer. I was supposed to be a Christian, but I had begun to question the reality of God and Christ, for they meant nothing to me in my daily life. I had been taught many scriptures from my childhood. But my reality of faith was not settled.

Then the peace of God filled my soul and my doubts of Him were settled for I said to myself, “Here is a God that satisfies my highest possible conception of Him – a God who gives himself as an atoning sacrifice for the very people who hate Him and sin against Him. I can never find a higher motivation that that.” And where had I learned that? From the Bible.

I remember opening my Bible and laying my hand on it: and I made my vow there that I stood by that Book – if it was erroneous, I would be in error along with it – if the God I knew was a big mistake, I would be a little mistake along with Him. If there were portions of the book I couldn’t explain, or could apparently be proved wrong, well to me the correct things of the book were so overwhelmingly many, I would be content to leave those questions still unanswered, and boldly mold my life and witness on it. The Bible would be “Thus saith the Lord” to me.

Forty years have now passed. I remain, by the grace of God, exactly where I then was. The Book has opened up infinite riches, from Genesis to Revelation, as it unveils a limitless Christ. Every section of it is its own storehouse of treasure. Difficulties still remain and there are questions unanswered, but they are just as minor as they were forty years ago. My soul has become deeply satisfied with the rationality of the gospel as well as with its sufficiency. Face the world squarely on any level, in philosophy, psychology and science; in politics and economics; in problems of society and industry; there is no adequate alternative to the Christian faith worked out in human lives.

But through the years I think it is true that faith has outrun love, and in that respect I have fallen short of the very revelation I claim to adhere to. Nothing could shine out more brightly from the Scriptures than love. Of course all living faith is motivated by love: “Faith that works by love.” But “…ADD to your faith…charity [love]”, Peter wrote, with a good list of additions before faith reached its goal in love!

To faith, love must be added and here I have come short. There are reasons. The gospel has two sides to it – justice and love. It divides the world into two camps, for as Paul said, it is the savior of death unto death as well as life unto life. The day of “the revelation of the righteous judgment of God” will bring eternal life to the one, and “indignation and wrath” to the other. It is much easier to have an easygoing show of love to all if, as many have, we sidestep the judgments of God and throw an indiscriminate blanket of acceptance over all. The Bible does not do that nor those that preach its message faithfully. A love of that nature cannot be the pure love of God in us, for it is false to His Word. We must find another way of love if it is to be the same as flowed out from the Savior, Paul, John, and the others.

It must have a foundation of faithfulness at any price, yet it must be clothed in a love which is more prominent than the faithfulness. But I think we often have those two in a reverse proportion: faithfulness is more prominent than love.

Though eager to speak of Christ, for instance, I am not immediately at home with the “pagan” as Jesus so obviously was – the friend of publicans and sinners. I think for too long I have loved “souls” instead of simply loving people. I have instinctively had the two-camps approach, and taken it that everybody is outside the Lord’s camp unless I have found out for sure that they are in it. I have not sufficiently just loved a person because he is a person, and sought the human touch with him which could lead on to sharing what Christ has meant to me. I shrink from contacts when I should welcome them and refuse to judge by external appearances.

I think that most of us who know the internal condition of churches and missionary activities and other agencies who hold the faith will agree that we have much to learn and practice in our ranks about loving one another. We do not face up at any price to the command the Savior gave absolute priority to in His last prayer in John 17 and His last words to His disciples. Why not? Again I think that some of it is because we have occupied ourselves in safe-guarding the truth, expounding the Bible, regarding each other more as consistent or inconsistent believers, rather than as plain beloved brothers and sisters. It is really a carry-over of the same outlook towards my brethren as I have had so much towards “outsiders”.

I am beginning to learn that Christ in me gives me the ability to not only love Christ in another person, but also any person himself and for himself, because that is the love of God to us, and thus to others through us.

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