In my sermon last Sunday, I defended from 2 John 1: 5-7 that such love among Christians is a great protection against deception. John wrote, “Do we love each other, [?] Because a lot of seducers have gone into the world. “That is why I understand that love protects us from such deceptions.
I said I saw four reasons in 2 John why love works this way. But I only had time to describe two in the sermon. So here are the other two.
- Verse 6: “And it is love: let us walk according to his commandments.
- “John said in 1 John 5:2.
- “In this we know that we love God’s children:when we love God and keep his commandments.
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This is not to say that love has no affection for people, but rather means that love has a clear direction from God. John agrees with Paul that we must love one another with fraternal love (Romans 12:10). But Christian love is more, than love. It is a love for those who share their commitment to all of God’s commandments that apply to us today.
Christian affection is Christian and affection. It has a Christian content; and he’s got emotion. What binds us to other believers is that we share a sincere and profound loyalty to what God says is good for people, their commandments. We don’t invent ways to love. We learn them from God.
A community of people who love each other like this won’t be easily fooled. For example, when your culture tells you that the way of love is to embrace so-called same-sex marriage, that community will say, “No, God knows what. It’s good for people, will we love people like him?And does mutual love deepen and soften their faithfulness to stay together?All the commandments? Gods, this protects them from deception.
John says, “I [love you] really, [?] In the heart of the truth that remains in us and will be with us forever?(2 John 1: 1-2). Our mutual love is based on two things: 1) truth dwells in you and me, and 2) the truth will be with you and me forever.
It’s unusual. I understand that this means that Christian truth is always more than beliefs we have in our minds and hearts; Is the truth also Christ himself?True with capital V?That it is not a conviction in our minds, but a real person with us forever in the community of love. “I am the way, the truth and the life? (John 14:6).
This implies, therefore, that my love for other believers is rooted not only in our shared truth about Jesus, but also in the presence of Jesus himself as a central person in that communion and, as such, what unites us in love is the deepest. possible affection for our supreme treasure, Jesus Christ.
Thus, when deception tries to see a person, an activity or a treasure as more desirable than Jesus, the same love that we have for one another will protect us from such deception, because such love is an affection shared by someone who is more desirable than anything else that deception can offer.