I have a dear friend of mine who I grew up with most of my formative years. A few months back he had shared with a few of us his concern over his relationship with his father. It is a struggle many of us second generation South Asians face with our parents: getting them to look at their children as adults when they are of the age. After years of being treated like a child, my friend decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with his dad. On the evening he was planning to do so, while prepping up the potential come-back arguments in his mind he sense something different. He explains it like this,

At around 7 PM, as my mind was trying to make sense of the clatter in my mind (“Ask this.” “Do that.” “Be firm.”), a voice broke through. A message began to marquee strongly through my head. This was not my voice nor my message nor my plans. I can attest to you that it was the voice of God. He gave me three simple, amazing words: “RESPOND WITH LOVE.”

My friend followed through the whole evening with those words, responding in love. And the result was, to say the least, reconciling! What was happening to my friend as he prepped to face his dad? How would we explained what happened in terms of the gospel?

Supernatural Love

Jesus had told his disciples during his earthly ministry, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:35).” Jesus here defined the quality and the result of love his followers would have.

The quality of love Jesus commanded should go out from us is the very love that came to us, namely from Him. Scripture teaches us elsewhere that it was only through the death of Christ that God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). But the context of Christ’s death is also crucial, “Christ died for the ungodly (5:6).” Christ, Who is God, died for those who are against godliness, the “ungodly.” What does this look like in our world today? In recent news, we’ve heard the story of a cop killer going on a rampage to kill cops because of a case of alleged corruptions. If this scenario were to be a plot to demonstrate the love of Christ for the world it would look like this: the cop killer would be captured and handed over to a hungry mob of cops who are seeking revenge on behalf of their own but then, a shift. A cop (characterizing the love of Christ) would step in the killer’s place to take the ramifications on his behalf. A cop would die for an anti-cop – not for someone who wasn’t a cop, but an individual who was against cops. That is out-of-this-world love (pun-intended)! How much more severe does the love of God look when he dies for those who were against Him? Jesus’ love was supernatural and this is the love He is calling us to.

Because this love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, He enables us to love this way. It is actually evidence that He does indeed dwell within us (Gal. 5:22). What did Jesus say would result if we loved with this love? “…everyone will know that you are my disciples.” Those who receive such supernatural love will come to know at least a few things:

1. that God is real
2. that God in Christ loves sinful men and women
3. that God’s love transforms lives

The result of the Christian’s love has the capacity to convince someone of the validity of what she says. Therefore we can sum it up this way: Love validates the message. My friend was able to put his flesh down and allow the Holy Spirit to love through Him with the love of the Father all because my friend at one time received the love by trusting in the gospel.

Questions to ponder:

Are there individuals in your life that you are sharing the gospel with? If you were to consider all the time you spent with them, what percentage takes up just loving them?

Do you believe that you have been loved by God? To what extent is this shown by you loving others selflessly?

If you are spending time polishing up your apologetics, great! But is there time spent on crafting your ability to love?