The Behavior of Love

(By Dave, 10-15 min)

Scripture

1 John 3:16-18 (ESV)

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

Love in words

In the paragraph preceding today’s Scripture verse John encourages believers to love one another. It is an imperative: “Whoever does not love abides in death” (v.14). In today’s Scripture verse, he moves on to explain what love means.

It is interesting that the apostle doesn’t start by defining love. Instead, he describes how we will know love when we see it. A glance at a secular definition illumines the wisdom of John’s approach.

Miriam-Webster’s 2024 online dictionary defines love as: “Strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.” There is a problem with this and all attempts to define the feelings people call love. They are open to individual interpretation. Is any kind of strong affection within a personal or kindred relationship love? If so, then strong affections based on abusive relationships would qualify.

The authors of the definition seem aware of this limitation and try to constrain it by adding: “attraction based on sexual desire, affection and tenderness felt by lovers, affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests, and assurance of affection.” Yet, these additions suffer from the same problem. Attraction based on sexual desire, for example, can be associated with what humans call the feeling of love and at the same time be exploitive, destructive and far removed from the love John describes.

Love seen in action

act alone is not the full expression of love depicted in the behavior of Jesus. The sacrifice must be for the direct benefit of the one who is loved. In our case the benefit was salvation and forgiveness of sins.

Unlike the secular definitions of love that depend upon the vicissitudes of a person’s affection or attraction toward another, John looks past definitions and points directly at the behavior of Jesus. Making Christ’s behavior the evidence for love is independent of family relations or ties. It can happen in the absence of sexual attraction, feelings of tenderness, or admiration, or a shared common interest. While most of these attributes will occur with the love John describes, they are the byproduct of that love not its essential nature. To make them its essential nature hides the true concept of the word.

To illustrate John’s point, suppose a firefighter rushes into a building to quell a blaze. His commander orders the building to be abandoned because it is about to fall, but on the way out the firefighter hears a young girl cry for help. Despite the danger he turns and grabs her. Too late. The roof collapses and sets the firefighter’s clothes ablaze. He struggles to exit the building carrying the child away from his burning clothes and saves her. Later he dies from his injuries. By John’s standard the firefighter loved that little girl even though they had no personal connection, sexual attraction, common interest or assurance of affection. We know this because the firefighter gave his life exclusively for the benefit of the child.

How much do we love?

We can look at Jesus and agree with John that Christ displays the purest and most divine expression of love. Still, most of us are not firefighters, soldiers, or the like, where our lives might come under threat in service to another. Therefore, the scenario Jesus, or our pretend firefighter faced, will likely not be ours and is not relevant to most of our everyday living.

John would disagree with this conclusion. Here is the full sentence he uses in directing our attention to Jesus: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” Simply because we may not be called upon to give our life for the sake of another, doesn’t change the evidence for love Jesus revealed. Only when we are ready to lay down our lives for the sake of those we love, will we be fully loving them.

If that’s true for the greatest sacrifice we can give, it is without question true for lesser sacrifices. Thus, “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” John is directly linking our behavior rather than our feelings to the absence or presence of love.

If we say we love people because God loves them and don’t use our resources to help those in need, then we do not have Christ’s love for them. Our feelings toward such a person may meet the secular definition of love, but unless our behavior reveals the presence of love within us, the feelings are only feelings. If we love someone in need as Christ does, then we would sacrifice our resources for the sake of that person. Sacrifice to meet their need rather than to the point we can afford.

John’s action-based barometer for love is challenging. If we aspire to love as God intended, then our actions must reveal it. In fact, John says precisely this at the end of today’s Scripture verse: “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.”

You uncomfortable yet? I am because this charge about loving people goes well beyond worldly goods. Imagine a newly married couple still in the throes of novel sexual attraction and feeling effusive love for each other. Indeed, their feelings satisfy all the criteria for love that appear in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. If one of them were asked if they would give their life for the other, the answer would be unequivocally yes. In their words they meet John’s notion of love as well.

Then the wife gets a new job in another city. For her to take that job, the husband will have to leave his job and move with her. He is unwilling to do so and immediately forecloses the possibility. His feelings for his wife are consistent with the dictionary definition of love but not with John’s. The husband said he was willing to die for his bride but when asked to make a lesser sacrifice, he won’t consider it. Maybe this is why John avoids using feelings or words to describe love and instead points to Jesus and says that behavior is how you will know love. When you act like him you are loving someone.

Of course we are human and the kind of love Christ displayed is hard for a sinner. Moreover, just because our pretend husband is not willing to quit his job and move for his wife doesn’t mean he is bereft of love for her. Christ reveals the highest expression of love, but not the only one. Still, John is calling us in our relationships to pursue the kind of love that Christ displayed for us.

See the perfect, he seems to be saying, and aspire to be there rather than where you are. If the husband were to do that, there might be a different conversation than the one depicted above. Maybe the couple still wouldn’t move, but the husband would be listening to his wife and her reasons for wanting the new job. He would be looking for ways to sacrifice for her.

Time for a change

When I read today’s Scripture verse and spent time thinking about how far-reaching it is, I was forced to wonder how much I love the people in my life whom I say I love. Am I truly willing to die for them? I think I am, but is that just lip service belied by my unwillingness to sacrifice something far less important than my own life for one of them? It is easy to say I will die for someone, but John reminds us that if we truly mean this, if we truly have the kind of love Jesus displayed, then lesser sacrifices should be joyfully and tenderly made.

I need to revisit how I interact with my wife, daughter, son-in-law and friends at a minimum. I truly do. Moreover, I need to consider how I use my worldly goods in the face of so many in need. Until reading John’s words today it did not occur to me to compare the love that I have for people to that which Jesus has for me. I just loved the people who were close to me and tried to love others. Our faith expressed through John calls us to pursue loving people the way Christ loved us. I am not meeting that standard by a long shot and wasn’t even aware of it. Are you in this place too?

No matter where you are, as sinners we’re likely not where Christ is and so there is always room to love a little bit more. Until next time my friends, be well, and I hope you feel the presence of God with you today. Thanks so much for reading,

Dave