Just Saying I Love You Is Not Enough!

Our verse for today to consider is one that is very pointed:

I John 3:18:
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

We live in a culture today where there is a lot of verbal assent given to this phrase, ‘I Love You.” But the problem is that we can say that all day long but if we’re not going to show it then those words ring hollow and meaningless!  There was a time in our society that we didn’t just say those words we actually put meaning behind them. Today because of the electronic age that we live in we don’t talk to people face to face much anymore. And then when we have to converse with others it’s in a very quick manner and most of the time we feel very uncomfortable.  It’s time that we slow down and start looking into the eyes and faces of our friends and neighbors and we listen to them and we hear what is taking place in their lives. Then when we say this phrase it can ring true.

That’s the physical side, how about the spiritual side? Obviously this verse is written to Christians and Paul is admonishing Christians to do what I just explained in the previous paragraph.  Isn’t it a shame that john would have to admonish Christians in this way? We know that if we are not careful we can fall into the same traps that the world falls into. But it shouldn’t be that way!

When we got saved we immediately became the possession of the Lord, we are His servants and He lives inside of us in the person of the Holy Spirit and he expects us to show love not just say it.

Why?

Because of these 2 verses:

I John 4:8:
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

I John 4:16:
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

These verses say that God is love and if He is living in our heart then we are going to put actions to our words. John takes it a little further with this verse:

I John 3:17 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?

John says this: How can you call yourself a Christian and not have Love for your fellow Christian when you see that he has a need?  Obviously there is a spiritual problem if this is true!  Now listen to this very condemning verse before I move on:

  I John 4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?

John finishes this very pointedly by saying that any Christian who hates his brother Christian has a very serious spiritual problem.  Now keep in mind that John is writing to Christians, I do not believe in the universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.  That teaching says that every man is a child of God and every man is a brother to each other!

This teaching is false, God is the Father of those who ask Him to save them, and everyone else has Adam as their father. And my brothers are those who have asked the Lord to save them; I am not a brother to every man! However I do have a responsibility to my fellow man to help when I can for one reason and that reason is to show the love of God to them.

So as you can see it’s one thing to say that we love but it’s an entirely different thing to put action to that love.  If you are one who just mentally says that you love God then you need to stop and ask Him to save you! I know because I was there for years and when I finally allowed that knowledge to go to my heart then it changed my life completely!

Until next week:

Roger Penny