Mar 25, 2020
By Pastor Johnmark Camenga
Have you ever been more concerned with being right than with showing love? I know. Right out of the gate, that question may feel a bit like a cheese grater on your knuckles. If it hits you that way, great. If not, I suggest you read again and again until it does hit you that way.
Have you ever been more concerned with being right than with showing love?
Now that we’ve let it linger a little while, allow me to answer that question for you.
Yes. Yes, you have been more concerned with being right than with showing love.
Yes. Yes, you do it all of the time. You do it in your interactions with strangers while you’re driving your car, you do it in your interactions with “friends” on line, and you do it with your family. In fact, the only times you haven’t acted that way have been
with great effort and discipline and only by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Truth matters. Agreed?
Having the right information matters. Yes?
But none of it will matter to someone else if they think all you care about is being right.
In 1 Timothy 1:5, Paul says that our goal as followers of Jesus is to love with a love “that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Certainly there is information that goes into the process of developing purity, goodness, and sincerity—the Gospel is, in part, the transmission of information. But that information is not what brings about transformation. It simply helps us see our need for change. Thus, love.
What happens when this love (1 Timothy 1:5) is not our goal? Paul continues in verses 6 and 7 to say that when people take their eyes off of that goal they wander “away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.” Simply put, when showing love isn’t the goal, being right is.
Being an evangelist is not only about having the right information. Being a follower of Jesus is not only about knowing the truth of the scriptures. Being an effective minister of the Gospel is not only about your ability to recite the words of Jesus and Paul and John.
Yes, you must know what you are talking about, but when you begin trusting what you know you begin to lose sight of who you know, you know? Yes, you must know what you are talking about, but when you begin trusting what you know you begin to lose sight of that which propels you into ministry.
In 1 Corinthians 13, often referred to as the love chapter, this implicit danger is laid out. Compressing verses 1 through 3 into a few lines, this is what we see: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels…if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge…if I have all faith and give away all I have and deliver my body up as a sacrifice…if I have all of this but I do not have love…I am just making noise, I am nothing, and I gain nothing.”
Love is an outwardly-focused thing. It has to be. We understand that God is love and that this love is what is at the heart of the work of creation and salvation. So, if love is God looking outside of Himself and sharing Himself with those who do not deserve it, certainly love must also be us looking outside of ourselves and sharing ourselves with those who God puts in our path.
What are some of the attributes of God that theologians like to talk about? Omnipotence? Sure. Omniscience? Okay. There are others, but those are the big two. And what do they mean? All-powerful and all-knowing. These are the big two and these are accurate, for sure, but let’s do a little experiment with them, shall we?
How does this sound?
For God was so powerful that He gave His only Son…no.
For God was so knowledgeable that He gave His only Son…nope.
Neither of these is the way Jesus chose to convey the motivation for God’s work of salvation. Instead, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” Yes, God has all knowledge and all power, but those things, in and of themselves, do not propel the act of salvation. Yes, God has all the knowledge and all the power, but there is nothing about those characteristics that would either motivate or compel acts of creation or salvation. In other words, if God was omnipotent and omniscient but not all-loving, there likely would not be a universe or a Milky Way or an earth or a you or a me.
It is only the love of God that creates and only the love of God that saves. In order for God to have accomplished these two things He also had to be omnipotent and omniscient, but these two characteristics were motivated to create and save by that which was primary about God’s character: His love.
What is primary about your character? As a Christian, as a believer in the Bible, as a church-attending member of the body of Christ, what is your primary motivation? Again, I raise this question in hopes that it is an irritant. I am a firm believer that when we read the Scriptures—when we truly open our heart and minds to what the Scriptures have to say—we cannot help but feel assaulted by the words and the Spirit behind them. Look at your life, at your words, at your actions, and at your feelings. Look at these things and ask yourself, “Am I more concerned with being right than with showing love?” Don’t lie to yourself.
This is not a call to love for the sake of compassion. And this is not a call to love at the expense of truth. No, rather than those things, this is a call to compassion and truth-telling motivated by the love of God. Share the Gospel of Jesus with all of its challenges and complexities. Confront situations where lies have supplanted the Word of God. Speak into societal concerns and issues of culture that run contrary to revealed truth. Do all of these things, but do not do them simply because they are true or because you are right or because others are wrong—do all of these things for the same reason God created and saved. Do them because God is love, because you are loved by God, and because that love motivates everything you say, do, and feel (1 John 4:19).
Why? Because none of it will matter to someone else if they think all you care about is being right.
