This week I decided to share a message from a devotional I get because I thought it was important!
Loving People, Not Just Words
By Eric Elder
www.theranch.org The day I put my faith in Jesus was the same day I put my faith in
the Bible, from which I learned about Jesus. I fell in love with
both on the same day.
When people talk about how much they love the Bible, they’re not just
talking about a book from which they’ve learned much, they’re also
talking about a Person from whom they’ve learned much.
I suppose it’s like a young lover who takes a picture of his beloved
out of his wallet and tenderly kisses the image. It’s not the
picture that the young man’s in love with, but a person whose image
is represented by the picture. If his love for the picture ever
began to surpass his love for the person, then we’d know that
something had started to go wrong.
Believe it or not, the same thing can happen to those of us who love
the Bible. When our love for the Word of God begins to supersede our
love for God -- and our love for the people of God about whom the
words were written -- then we know something has started to go wrong.
Jesus criticized the religious leaders of His day for this very
thing. They claimed to love the Word of God, and even gave the
appearance of following the commands found in it to the “T.” But
Jesus saw their hearts; He saw that they weren’t motivated by their
love for others, but by how they appeared to others. It was a subtle
difference that produced drastically different results than God had
intended.
Jesus didn’t condemn these leaders for what they were teaching, for
they were teaching the Word of God. But He did condemn then for how
they put those words into practice. He said:
“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So
you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do
what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up
heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are
not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is
done for men to see...” (Matthew 23:2-5).
Jesus goes on to denounce the actions of those leaders in some of the
strongest words in the Bible, calling them hypocrites, snakes,
vipers, and sons of hell. Yikes! I don’t want to be like that! I
hope you don’t either! So what can we do instead?
Jesus tells us in the same passage. For starters, we’re to do the
opposite of what the teachers of the law and the Pharisees were
doing! He doesn’t want us to just preach to others, but to practice
what we preach. When we give godly advice to others, we’re not just
to walk away and say, “I’ve told you what to do, now good luck.” He
wants us to at least lift a finger -- and more -- to help them to do it.
If someone’s struggling with an addiction, rather than just telling
them it’s wrong, offer to be their accountability partner. If
someone’s considering a divorce, rather than just telling them to try
to work it out with their spouse, help them to work it out with their
spouse. If someone’s going under financially, rather than just
telling them to work out a budget, help them to work out a budget.
I’m preaching to myself, too! It’s often easier to tell people what
they should do than to help them to do it, which is why I’m studying
these “lessons in love”!
Our motivation in sharing God’s Word must always be love -- saying
and doing things that will truly benefit those we’re trying to help,
whether anyone sees our good deeds or not.
If we claim to love the Word of God, we must also love the people of
God about whom the words are written. To do anything less would be
like falling in love with a piece of paper with some ink on it.
-----------------
Prayer: “Father, help me to love Your people, remembering that Your
words were written because of Your great love for them. In Jesus’
name, Amen.”
