Left your first love

I flipped through the New Testament last night and wrote a list of verses on the love of God. In all those instances in my non-exhaustive search, God's love was shown to us by the sacrificial and giving love of Jesus Christ, which ultimately led him to the cross. There's no way we could comprehend the perfect inter-trinitarian love of the Godhead. It would be more than we could handle or even witness in our fallen, creaturely state, but God demonstrated his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom. 5: 8)

I then wrote a list of verses on how God's love is supposed to be seen in believers, and there was a definite parallel. The evidence of God's love in our lives was related to our sacrificial love toward others, especially in the body of Christ.

For example -

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 1 John 3:16-18

And of course 1 Corinthians 13, which Paul did not write because he had a wedding ceremony to perform at Corinth. This letter was to a real church with serious issues that needed to be addressed, and in the midst of correcting them, Paul reminded them (and us) of what love truly is. If you read the chapter, isn't Jesus the embodiment of those characteristics? And yet, we are called to love as he did by the Holy Spirit's enabling, which is the only way this could be possible.

So having received God's love through Christ and having been called to love as he loved us, what do we make of situations like the recent Houston Chronicle articles on child abuse cover-up in Southern Baptist churches? And sadly, this isn't just an SBC or Roman Catholic problem. The flagrant contradiction between being marked by God's love and covering up abuse and siding with abusers makes my head hurt and my heart ache. Something vital has disconnected along the way such that it would be possible to profess Christ and harm his sheep. This is no time for self-righteousness and "thank God, I'm not like those Southern Baptists." This is a time to reflect and ask what is the state of our love for God and for his people because you can't have one without the other. They are intertwined. If we say we love God and hate our brother, the love of God is not in us. (1 John 4:20) And if we would be willing to throw children under the bus by covering up abuse, what are we loving more than God that would cause us to do that? Was the love of power, authority, name, fame, platform, money, and reputation greater than the lives of those children?

These are Christ's words to the church of Ephesus in Revelation. They may be worth pondering as the darkness in the church is being brought to the light. 

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent. Rev. 2:2-5