The Supremacy of Love

The Supremacy of Love in the Life of the Believer

Matthew 22:34-40: “But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

We do many things as believers. We attend church. We read our Bibles. We read Christian books. We listen to sermons. We pray. We attend church meetings. We evangelize. We raise kids. We work jobs. We give to the Church. We serve others in need. We refrain from sin. We sing hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs. We counsel. We show hospitality. The list goes on...

This is a quick list of the variety of things that we do as believers. These are all good things that are commanded by God for the purpose of building up his Church and bringing him glory, but don’t miss this. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he basically said, “The greatest command is twofold: First, love God. Second, love your neighbor. Every command for the believer depends on his or her heart being driven by love for God and love for neighbor.”

Here’s the problem: Many Christians do all the things that I first listed but do it without a love for God or neighbor. We would say that we are doing it for God’s glory, but the fruit of following the list of commands often does not lead to a real love for others, so we can assume that it is not rooted in a love for God. I might tell myself that I am trying to love others by the way that I evangelize, counsel, and teach but when it comes to love perception is almost always reality. Do people FEEL loved by us? Do people FEEL judged by us?

I spent quite a bit of time with a believer that is a strong leader, a hard-worker, a student of the Bible, and a great teacher. He had so many gifts. He also regularly talked about how much he loved the church. Unfortunately, people heard him talk about his love for the church, but none of us actually felt loved by him. Instead, we all felt intimidated or judged by him. Rather than just quietly loving us, he seemed to boast of his love and to judge us for our lack of love. When I talked with him about this, he was shocked that I didn’t find him to be a loving person. It seemed that his thought was that if he could theologically define love, then he was a loving person. Those of us around him felt very differently.

Consider these two passages of Scripture:

Do you read what Paul is communicating to the Corinthians?

You can be a hero in your church but counted as NOTHING in God’s eyes.

Who do we lift up as the heroes in our churches? The ones who receive the most praise in a church are usually the preachers, the theologians, the generous, and the martyrs or missionaries. Paul says that a preacher, theologian, giver, or martyr is NOTHING if they are not marked by love in all that they do.

What this means is that if a preacher excels in teaching the Bible but is judgmental or unapproachable, he is nothing.

If a theologian can write books or commentaries on the love of Christ but chooses to only critique rather than build up his neighbor, he is nothing.

If the highest donor in the church despises the poor man, he is nothing.

If the boldest missionary leads a new people group to faith in Christ but is distant and harsh with his children, he is nothing.

The Christian life is not measured by knowledge, ministry skills, or leadership ability. The Christian life is measured by love.

This is a strong warning for all of us: If people around us don’t feel loved, then we are in a dangerous place of potentially being counted as NOTHING in God’s economy.

A heart full of love toward God and neighbor that isn’t perfectly sound in doctrine is still worship.

A mind full of accurate doctrine that lacks love is sin.

Paul even writes this to Timothy:

1 Timothy 1:5-7: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered 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.”

Paul’s aim is love. Certain people have swerved from love which has led them into vain discussions. In one sense, their theology may have been accurate, but because it lacked love, it became a vain discussion which transformed them into ignorant theologians who don’t understand what they are saying.

This was a game changer for me. I thought that Christian maturity was being more articulate in Christian theology, or stopping sinful behaviors, or being more faithful in spiritual disciplines. These are nothing without love? This changes everything.

Therefore, we’ve shifted our focus. We’re done being driven by behaviors that the Christian community tells us that we should do as our chief motivation but instead we’re turning our attention to two simple questions, “How can we love God? How can we love our neighbors?” Our spiritual growth measuring stick will be a love-barometer rather than a list of commandments to flee or follow. These might seem like scary new waters, but we’re experiencing something special as we step out of our judgmental behavior-driven boats. We’re wanting to walk in the freedom that comes from hearts full of love rather than hearts that are full of skepticism, critiques, judgments, or anxieties.

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