♫“So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and
What You're made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love”♫
After hearing the lyrics of this song, sung by the Christian band 'For King and Country', I felt such a tug at my heart. My mind started recalling all the unbelievers I had recently spoken to. The most common thread among these people has been that they notice the behavior of Christians does not match the things they preach, teach and say they believe. Neither I nor they claim this to apply to all believers, but it does apply to far too many. So if we aren’t doing or acting like we are supposed to, how should we change and why?
Why? Because how else are non-believers going to become believers? Christians are supposed to be the proof of God’s love. Matthew 5:14 says that we are “the light of the world.” Verse 16 says “let your light shine before others,” It’s pretty simple to understand these verses; we are the light and we are to shine before others. Lights show the way through the dark. So basically Christians are to be the flashlights of the world, showing the way to those who haven’t found God’s love.
Now, how does one of God’s shining lights look and act? First we don’t do as the world does because you can't win them if you join them. If it is a blueprint for Christian living you are looking for I suggest we start with God Himself. 1 John 4:8 says that “God is love”. So we must start with love since that is the very nature of The One we want to portray to others. What is love and how do we show it? Fortunately for us, there is a chapter in the Bible known as “The Love Chapter” and it speaks of what true Love should look like.
1 Corinthians chapter 13 starts off by telling us that anything we do, that we do not do with love is as nothing. We can speak the Word of God to unbelievers and make every verse’s meaning crystal clear but if we aren’t speaking with love then the sounds coming from our mouths are useless. Sounds like love is pretty important, doesn’t it?
Verse 4 starts with “Love is…” Here’s where we find out if what we think we’ve been doing for God was done in love or if it has been useless. Love means being patient and kind; have you argued with an unbeliever? Love doesn’t envy or boast; wanting something that belongs to someone else, or bragging about what you have or what you’ve done. Love is not arrogant or rude; it does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful. Love does not keep score. Love rejoices in the truth. Love protects, trusts, hopes, always perseveres. Love doesn’t end. Now we see what love is, does and doesn’t do. We have read it so if we don’t do it, it will be sin for us. (James 4:17)
All of those “love is…” verses may seem difficult at first but when we pray and ask God to help us see others as He sees them and love them with His love I believe we will see things change.
I can’t talk about how we should love and not say something about who we should love. Our enemies should feel the same love we show our friends. Those who persecute us should feel God’s love from us as well. (Matthew 5:44) Ouch! I know that’s a hard one to swallow but it’s in the Word and we should live by it. Love always perseveres, remember? I have found that walking away is sometimes the only way to show love. God is love, so to show true unconditional love to someone, especially when it’s difficult to do so, is to show them God.
Our goal as Christians should be to always grow closer to God and in doing so start to look and act more like him every day. The more we act like Him the more people will notice our “set apartness” and they will want what we have. Love attracts people. I am so confident in my belief that I will boldly say that if everyone who says they are a Christian would love like Jesus and strive to be more like him every day we would have a major decline in unbelief in our world.
Christian’s lives are the proof of God’s love. My prayer is that we all start loving with that uncommon love that Jesus showed, after all love is the best thing there is.
“But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13 MSG)
