Selfish love says, “I love you for my sake” (human’s), but selfless love says, “I love you for your sake” (God’s).
The Greeks are known for distinguishing four different types of love, a distinction that we as Christians have also embraced and normalised. I did the same until recently as the Lord started to challenge my own understanding of love.
The bottom line when it comes to rightly understand love as Christians is the revelation that God is love. It means that unless what we define as love is God-like it is not the kind of love God talks about and expects of us. It is important to understand that God’s love is selfless, not selfish, as demonstrated in the Christ Event (cf. John 3:16)
Accordingly, the Lord Jesus says to his disciples (John 14:15), “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Or simply put, you will do my will. Interestingly, he intentionally chose “obey my command” instead of “do my will” as to highlight for our sake love as the main drive for obedience to his command.
Now, we all know that generally speaking obedience is not always an expression of love or motivated by love. For example, many believers obey God’s commandments to avoid punishment or for fear of hell, that is, often for their own sake. Here Jesus is clear: Let your obedience to me be expression of your love for me. Here the Lord Jesus means love as he knows it, that is, selfless love, love by his definition and not ours…..
In other words, we are to obey God for his sake and not our own. We are to obey God for the sake of his kingdom, that is, to advance his plans and purposes on earth. Selfless love is what God expects of us on earth especially as agents of transformation….
Let’s consider Job 1:6-12 with the view to help us gain more understanding as we consider Job as someone who obeyed (loved)/feared God all his life but not primarily for his own sake. This passage recounts the conversation between God and Satan as God sat on His throne. We find in it two different perspectives in relation to Job’s life. Evidently, God is so pleased with Job that he “brags” about him to Satan (1:8), but Satan does not seem impressed at all and he gives his reason in verse 9.
Please note, what Satan says to God reveals what he believes about all human beings (us), that is, we cannot love or serve for nothing: Job 1:9-11, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Satan replied. Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
Please note Satan’s question: “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan is saying, in other words, Job fears God for something, that is, for his own sake to secure God’s protection and blessings upon his life. Worse, it is as if Satan is indirectly implying that God protected and blessed Job for his own sake too, that is, as to win him over to fear God. Nothing could have been further from the truth than that as the life of Job and God’s revelation in the Bible clearly show. Here we learn the secret of Job’s strength and blessings, namely, he feared God for nothing or no personal gain. He who didn’t pursue gain gained more than he could imagine as to become a living testimony!
The fact that Satan puts it this way tells me that he must have understood God as saying that there was no one on earth like Job who feared/loved God for God’s sake and not his own. Satan could not simply believe that Job could have loved God but not for his own sake for after all Job was a human being and we all know what human beings are like, don’t we?….
Sadly, Job’s wife proved Satan right when she said to her husband (2:9), “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!” Job, however, proved God right, and Satan wrong, as we read in verse 10 that “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” Talking about putting Satan to shame….
Talking about selfless love, the Lord Jesus says to his disciples if you love me, you will obey what I command. It has to be selfless love, or for the sake of Jesus (other) for it to be demonstrated through obedience to his command.
See, Job’s life and trials is a “yes we can!” to humankind. Yes we can fear and love God for nothing, meaning, not aiming at personal gain. In fact, it is more blessed to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the world in fearing and loving God for His sake -talking about being a holy nation (different from other nations).
We submit that it is only then that we can practice and experience selfless love in relation to fellow human beings as prerequisite for advancing the plans and purposes of God on earth. We can love but not for own sake and that is the kind of love God expects of us and planet earth longs for, the love that makes a difference….
Writing in the spirit of selfless love Apostle Paul states (1 Corinthians 4:9-13), “For it seems to me that God has put apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated we are homeless. We work hard with our hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.”…
No wonder Revelation 21:14 states, “The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” Just wondering….
May God help us all!
