While on vacation this past summer, we spent a couple of those days in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area. I like to gawk at churches, looking at their property, and reading their signs. One church’s sign really caught my eye, and I found its message a bit baffling. The message said:
We love because He first loved us.
At first reading, you may say, “What’s wrong with that?!?” Let’s consider the passage as it’s recorded in Scripture.
“We love him, because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
There was ample room on the sign for the word “him.” They chose to remove it, thus succumbing to the pop theology climate of our churches which would applaud such a statement. However, this omission of him creates an errant theology.
The ecumenical, liberal push in churches today insists that we must love everyone. The definition of love is to accept, welcome, and embrace everyone into the folds of God and His church. While it is true that we are to love everyone – Biblically agape love them – we are not to be accepting or welcoming of their sin. We are not to be tolerant of its inclusion and acceptance into our church.
1 John 4:19 is NOT talking about loving others. The focus is on our love for God. We love GOD because He first loved us and showed us what love is all about. When we love God the way we should, we cherish Him and His Word above all else. This love tends to cause separation and division in our lives, especially in our families.
Jesus said in Matthew 10:34-39, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. (35) For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law
against her mother in law. (36) And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. (37) He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (38) And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. (39) He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” These are the results that come from loving God supremely.
The sign also ignores something. We cannot love God — or others for that matter — until the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts. Romans 5:5 says, “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” At salvation, we are given the Holy Spirit of God and the fruit of the Spirit. This love that I am to have for the Lord has been given to me at salvation and without salvation, I don’t have that love. It’s impossible for me to really love anyone, God included.
My Biblical love for others stems from my Biblical love for God. It all starts there. The rest of 1 John bears this out. “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? (21) And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.” (1 John 4:20-21) The proof that I really love God and that the love of God is in my heart is seen in how I treat my brother.
Maybe you think it’s not that big of a deal and it’s reading something into the sign that wasn’t intended. All I know is that misquoting the verse of Scripture changed the meaning of the verse and misdirects the priority of our love.
1 Peter 1:8 tells us about Jesus, “Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
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