FAITH CAPSULE: Are you loving by your standard or by God’s standard?

1 Corinthians 13, 1 John 4

Knowing the word of God is knowing God while knowing about God is not knowing God. In the word of God is God’s commandment and the purpose of God’s commandment is love. Loving as commanded by God is knowing God. Loving is rooted in having faith in God. One that loves as commanded by God does have faith in God. In the world today, is there love the evidence of faith? Wickedness reigns all over the world in the place of love. Interestingly, Jesus asked, “…when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8) Search self and identify if living life in commandment of God is demonstrated by loving. Loving as commanded by God is having faith. Word of God recorded, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1John 4:7-8) Do you know God? Do you love as commanded by God? Are you looking forward to the coming back of Jesus and not miss out when He comes?
Love as commanded by God is crucial not to miss heaven.
God gave His commandment so that love can exist among man. A brother who abstains from stealing, lying or deceiving his brother demonstrates love. Loving in God’s way is God’s love. We cannot love in our own way but by God’s standard. The book of 1Timothy 1:5 identified standard of God’s love, “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk.” Loving by God’s standard is not common especially in a world where man is full of self. Claiming to love without loving with pure heart, good conscience and sincere faith is empty love. In a world where living life is without good conscience love is evidently not a way of living life. In a world where man is desperately concerned about self, engaging others with sincere faith is a strange thing. Are you loving by your standard or as commanded by the word of God?
Among the gift of God, love is the greatest gift. Love should be considered as the anchor which every other gift holds on to and when love is not there fulfilling the command of God is impossible. Paul the apostle clearly drew out the importance of love in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Have faith by loving as commanded by God is profitable.

Prayer for today: Ask God for the grace to love according to His standard.