G: Ephesians 5:1-2

Ephesians 5:1-2 (ESV)

 ¹ Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. ² And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

These two verses are BibleGateway's verse of the day, and it also happens that this is a subject that weighs on my heart more often than not. In the United States, people (for the most part) don't judge what we believe--they judge what we do. The persecution we face here comes because we hold fast to our faith and the things we believe are right, and we act on it. A lot of times though, when we're criticized we get defensive.


Why?


Because as humans we don't like to be told what to do. Some may be better at taking instruction than others, but as a whole when has humanity ever wanted to listen to instruction? So when someone is trying to tell us how to believe, we defend ourselves, often with a hurt attitude.


Well, that works both ways. Am I saying don't go out and be missionaries (Matthew 28) and gospel sharers? I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that Ephesians 5:2 is key to how we are to go about sharing what we believe and telling others of the good news.


How are we to do that? Let's read again.

Ephesians 5:2 (ESV)

² And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

As Christians, we are commanded to walk in love, the kind of all-encompassing, self-sacrificial agape love that Christ had for us. We're not commanded to order people to change. We're not told to scream them down, or to tell them they're going to Hell, or to ridicule or embarrass them.


We are simply called to walk in love.


A lot of non-Christians you talk to will tell you that their perception of a Christian is someone who is close-minded and who shoves their beliefs down others' throats without any regard to what that person may already believe. Many I've talked to are shocked when I tell them what the Bible has to say about love--how Christians were not called to condemn, but to love those around us and share the love of God through that. By loving others and loving God, we are pressing forward to take hold of the commandments issued in Ephesians 5:1-2.


My personal opinion, and the opinion of Ephesians 5:1-2, is that the "bad cop" approach to Christianity is the wrong way to go about it. You can be persistent in sharing without being aggressive. The approach I often take when sharing is "I'm curious as to what you believe. You're [this religion], right? I don't know much about that." I don't lie, I don't yell. I approach the person as a person, not only as a conversion number. I generally trend toward being a nice person, and so I just act like myself while keeping in mind that we are called to love.

It's really hard when someone doesn't agree with your beliefs, and you think they're wrong. Who doesn't want people to believe like we do? The natural thing is to get defensive and say "But you're wrong!" The Bible doesn't say don't tell them they're wrong--but it does say to do it with love.

 I keep using the word "love," but many people have different definitions of what love is. The definition I am using comes from 1 Corinthians 13:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)

 ⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Today, my goal is to walk in love, remembering to love those around me as Christ loved us. I often have to work at not insisting I'm right, because like many people I love to be right. And so today I am going to start working on not insisting that I be right, and instead listening to what other people have to say as well.


 In Christ and Love,
Gabrielle