Romans 5: 8 “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”

By Van Yandell

Advice we occasionally hear given to young people is, “Don’t confuse love with lust.” Lust is usually associated with sexual desires. Our physical bodies cause us to do many things we later regret and the powerful sexual desire of humans at times affects our ability to reason rationally.

The word love is often confused. Eros love is a love between a husband and wife and not to be confused with agape love. Agape love is actually the highest form of love. God’s love for His creation is demonstrated in this definition. Jesus demonstrated this selfless sacrificial love on the cross.

Lust of course, can be for riches, power or prestige. A strong insatiable desire for anything that causes one to act irrationally to be satisfied can be classified as lust.

Exodus 20: 17a “Thou shalt not covet.” Coveting is very closely connected to lust. In many cases, they may be exactly the same. Our desires can very easily overreach into sin.

Lust is of the body and love is of the heart. Lust is a physical, desire, while love is a deeper, more emotional and committed feeling.

Lust could never provide the commitment as does actual love. Lust is selfish and immediate while love is selfless and patient.

Many non-believers in the world consider the story of Jesus giving Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of all mankind to be an irrational, illogical belief. Why would, how could the Creator of all things do such a thing?

This is where the difference in Christianity and some of the other world religions begin to separate. Whereas Christianity is about God’s love for His creation (mankind), various other religions are about power, selfishness, hatred, human sacrifice or man’s actions to gain eternity.

We do not have eternal salvation by what we may do but by what Jesus did. His sacrificial shedding of blood became the sacrifice for the sins of all.

John 15: 12-14 “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.”

The American military service men and women, firefighters and police officers lay their lives on the line every day. Many jobs are more than a paycheck and “life on the line” is an every day existence.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (Living Bible) “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.”

This definition of “love” given by the Apostle Paul makes a statement all need to hear and heed. When we think of love and it does not conform to this description in 1 Corinthians, perhaps we should re-examine our personal definitions of love.

Perhaps Paul’s thoughts concerning love and many world religions not practicing these simple concepts explains why the world is in such chaos today. The presence of love would not include the wars and many illegal activities happening in our world today.

Many resent the Christian concept of the urgency of promoting the Gospel of Christ Jesus. The vast misunderstanding is because teaching the love of Christ is an act of love.

I will never forget talking to a man in a (mostly) non-Christian country. After explaining the path to eternity through belief in Christ, he asked me, “What does it cost?” He thought I was trying to sell him something.

When I told him it was a free gift from God and I was there because the Bible commands that I do so, he was at a loss for words.

We tell others about the saving power of our Jesus because He has commanded us to do exactly that (Matthew 28: 18-20 and Acts 1: 8). Secondly, because we are Christians we are commanded to love all mankind.

John 13:34 “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” This cannot be interpreted as loving only those we personally know but all the world’s people. Because of this we go to “the uttermost” (Acts 1: 8) to preach and teach.

John 13:34-35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Loving all people demonstrates to the world we are not only believers but also followers of the Lord Jesus.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have ever lasting life.” John clearly states in repeating the words of Jesus that “God so loved the world.”

With the approaching Christmas season, we are reminded by the sights and sounds of God’s love for us. The birth of the Christ child was the beginning of the redemption of man. Since the “fall of man” (Genesis 3), man has had the need to be redeemed and Jesus provided that.

We must always teach that eternal salvation is attained by a faith based belief (Ephesians 2: 8) in Christ Jesus crucified (Matthew 27: 35) for the remission of sin (1 John 1: 9), resurrected (Matthew 28: 6) and ascended alive in to Heaven (Acts 1: 9).

Van Yandell is a retired Industrial Arts teacher, an ordained gospel evangelist and commissioned missionary. His email is vmy3451@gmail.com