Love Means Doing
John 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:21 He that understands My commandments and does them, that person is the one that really loves Me.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, If a person loves Me, he will keep My words: 1 John 5:3 For this is what it means to love God: that we do what He says and it is not a burden.
If a person is committed to Jesus, his/her main concern will be to do what He says. Obeying Jesus’ commandments is a salvation issue.
People often have a false assurance of salvation because their view of salvation is not biblical.
They think they are saved, and the reality is, they are not.
Matthew 7:22 says: Many will come to Him at the last day saying, “Lord, Lord…” They will come to Jesus fully assured that they belong to Him, but He will turn them away, exposing their assurance as counterfeit.
People too often play games with the idea of love between people, God’s love, and what true love does. There are three main areas of misunderstanding concerning salvation, God’s love, and man’s love.
Love or Universalism
There is no need for a love commitment.
Universalism teaches that everyone is saved and goes to heaven, basically because God is a God of love.
They believe every person goes to heaven.
I am a person. so I will go to heaven. They hold to the doctrine of justification by death. If a person dies, they go to heaven. They do not speak of
loving Jesus enough to do what He says.
We have so eliminated the last judgment from our theology and expunged any notion of divine punishment or of hell from our thinking (and from the church’s thinking) that it is now widely assumed that all a person must do to get to heaven is to die.
Love or Legalism
There is no need for a love commitment, just work hard and earn your way. Legalism is another way of referring to “works righteousness.” Legalism teaches that to get to heaven, you must obey the law of God and live a good life. Do that and your good deeds will get you into heaven.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in His sight.
One person that might be the best example of this false view of salvation is the rich young ruler. (Luke 18:18–30). He asked Jesus what was required for salvation. Jesus
replied, “Why do you call Me good? Haven’t you read Psalm 14:3:b1” ‘They all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one’?
For many, the idea that man is basically bad, sounds absurd.
The biblical standard of goodness is the righteousness of God. We are judged both by our behavioral conformity to the law of God and by our internal motivation or desire to obey the law of God.
Many people do civic virtue. That is, they do good things in society. However, too many do none of it because ‘their hearts have a pure and full love for God.’
When God looks at a human action, He asks,
“Does this work proceed from a heart that loves Me fully?” Jesus’ command was, “Love God with all you are
and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Therefore, if someone obeys the law outwardly, while his or her heart is not fully given to God, then that person’s virtue has been tainted.
The entire rich young ruler encounter was about goodness. Do we think we have enough goodness, enough righteousness, to satisfy the demands of a holy God? Every page of the New Testament speaks the truth that our righteousness is not enough. (Isaiah 64:6)
Love or Sacerdotalism
There is no need for love, the sacraments will get me there.
Sacerdotalism is the view that salvation is accomplished through the priesthood, the sacraments, and or through the church. People point to baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or to other rites, and feel they have God’s grace through these.
The Pharisees committed this error in biblical days.
They assumed that because they “did the externals,”
they were guaranteed a place in heaven after death. Sacraments are very important; they communicate the promises of God to us for our salvation, but they have never saved anyone.
A close relative to this sin is the idea that all a person must do to be saved is to join a church, pray a prayer, or feel a certain feeling, but these never made anyone right with God.
The real question is: Do You Love Jesus? Are you fully committed TO HIM, and concerned about Doing what He said?
Love for Christ is a result of the Spirit’s work. God the Holy Spirit changes the disposition of our souls and the inclination of our hearts, when we make a commitment to Him.
As believers, the inclination of the heart is to OBEY.
As we do that, we powerfully communicate our love!