FOUNDATIONS: 6 Christ’s Love Compels Us

One day Jesus was having a meal in the home of a religious leader. As they were eating, something happened that greatly surprised many who were there. A well-known prostitute walked into the house during the meal, approached Jesus, and “knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them” (Luke 7:38). How did Jesus respond to this “immoral woman” (v. 37)? “Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your sins are forgiven’” (v. 48).

This is a beautiful story about Jesus. But what lesson did He intend for us to learn from it? Jesus told those who were there: “I tell you, her sins- and they are many- have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love” (v. 47).

Why did Jesus say this prostitute loved Him more than others? Because her greater understanding of God’s forgiveness would cause her to be more grateful. Or as our Bible verse states:

Christ’s love compels us (2 Cor 5:14 NIV)

How much you love and obey God

depends on how much you believe He loves you.

You cannot love God more than you believe He loves you

The goal of the Christian life is to love God. But how do you grow in your love for God? By believing more in His love for you. Your grasp of God’s love for you controls how much you will love God. You are made that way. You cannot give what you do not have. You are not able to love God more than you believe He loves you. You are only able to forgive as much as you believe you are forgiven. Jesus said, “a person who is forgiven little” or thinks little of their forgiveness, “shows only little love” (Luke 7:47). This is why, “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Cor 5:14). Faith in Christ’s sacrificial and unconditional love for you will forcefully drive you to love Him. The power to live for God is the power of His love for us.

God loving you and you loving Him sums up everything in your Christian life. Everything God promises in Scripture is to tell you how much He loves you. Everything God commands in Scripture is to tell you how to love Him. He has promised you: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3). And He has commanded you: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart” (Matt 22:37).

Think about the following carefully, because it is another way to sum up the Christian life: Who you are and what you have is God’s love-gift to you. But who you become and what you do is your love-gift to God. God has made you a son or daughter of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe and has given you His personal pardon, power, and eternal paradise! What will you do with that? How much will you love Him in response? As a Christian, that is the most important question you need to decide for your life. How much will you love, serve, obey, and sacrifice for God in response to how much He has forgiven, loved, blessed, and promised you?

It is the power of God’s love for you that enables you to fulfill the supernaturally challenging commands of God. You are a son of God first, and a servant of God second. As noted previously, this is why in Ephesians and Romans Paul focused first and wrote the most about God’s love for Christians, rather than about how Christians are to love and obey God. In Romans he reminded them 7 times of God’s great and horrible wrath toward sinners just like you (cf. Rom 1:18; 2:5, 8; 3:5; 4:14; 5:9; 9:22). He devoted at least 9 chapters to explaining God’s complete forgiveness of you. And if you ever saw or experienced what the burning, vengeful, wrath of God is really like, you would be more grateful for His mercy toward you.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper [Gr. logikēn rational] worship. (Rom 12:1 NIV)

The Apostle Paul begins his plea to live a sacrificial and holy life for God with a reminder of “God’s mercy.” The Apostle knew that if you greatly appreciate what God has given you, and who He has made you, then you will be greatly motivated to do much for God and become holy for God.

It is because of God’s great mercy, that Paul writes, “I urge you, brothers and sisters . . . to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” He wants you to make a logical conclusion: If God gave you so much, then it is only “proper” for you to give Him a lot. God could not have given you more: He gave His one and only Son to suffer a cruel death on a cross to pay for all the sinful things you have done. And God could not ask you for more: He asks for your body as a living sacrifice. He sent His Son to die for you. Now He is asking you to live for Him. The Bible says elsewhere: “He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them” (2 Cor 5:15). Will you?

This complete commitment to God is obviously right and reasonable when you consider all that God has done for you. In light of the past, present, and future blessings of God on your life, only insanity, ingratitude, or ignorance would cause you to continue to live for yourself. Believing in “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Cor 5:14 NIV).

The Apostle is encouraging you to serve God out of gratitude not guilt. To obey God because of love, not legalism. A guilty or legalistic person does not serve God out of love for Him. They obey God because they believe His acceptance of them depends on what they do or do not do. This leads to serving God out of guilt rather than grace and gratitude.

Your Father who is in Heaven never ever wants you to do anything because you feel guilty or must earn His love. He wants you to serve Him because of how much you know He has already completely forgiven you and loves you unconditionally. God your Father could never love you more, no matter what you do or do not do. This is what grace is! You are completely and constantly treated with unconditional, constant, never changing, over-powering love from God no matter what you do!

“Christ’s love compels us” (2 Cor 5:14 NIV). Imagine the power of God’s love for you working in your life. How much easier and joyful would it be to obey Him? Why is it hard to do things for God? Why is it a struggle to pray, have God Times, be committed to a Barnabas Group, and give and serve sacrificially? Why is unconditionally and sacrificially loving your spouse and children so hard? Why do people and circumstances make you mad, hurt, afraid, or discouraged? Because you are not experiencing the compelling and driving force of God’s love for you. When you or others are struggling with your obedience and commitment to God the real reason is that you are struggling with believing the love God has for you.

This is something vital for parents and Pastors to understand. Perhaps they have children or church members that seem to lack spiritual commitment and maturity. What do many of them do to help them? They try to convince them more about the commands of God instead of the love of God. Often they put more pressure on people to obey instead of helping them have more power to obey.

Both parents and Pastors could learn from Paul. He understood that greater obedience to God comes from greater belief in God. Therefore, he not only taught and wrote a lot about God’s love, but prayed for this very thing. He wrote to the Ephesians:

May you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. (Eph 3:18-19)

What does Paul say will make us “complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God”? It is to “understand” and “experience” God’s love. Praying that people would “understand” and “experience” God’s love more is one of the most powerful things you can do for them. Many parents and Pastors could preach fewer commands and pray more love. This is because: “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Cor 5:14 NIV). How much you love and obey God depends on how much you believe He loves you.

Growing in your faith

If you want to love, obey, and glorify God more, you simply need a deeper and stronger faith in God’s love for you. But it is not God’s love for you alone that changes and blesses your life. You must have faith and trust in it. Therefore, it is important to understand what biblical faith is.

First, the foundation of faith in God is a reliable revelation from God. Biblical faith is not based on a feeling, impulse, wish, or an imagined “sign.” Faith in God is based on something you know for certain God has said or done. This is why Scripture is your only sure guide for your faith.

Secondly, the strength of your faith is always based on evidence and experience. God has never expected His people to believe anything without proof. You can fake faith in something you do not have proof of. But God did not make you that way. You were created to base the strength of your belief and faith on evidence. Which is why the literal translation of Hebrews 11:1 from the original Greek is: “Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

For example, why do you believe God created the Universe? First, you have a reliable revelation from God in Scripture that He did (cf. Gen 1:1). However, you did not personally see Him do it. This is why it is an object of faith. But the massive size and complex design of Creation gives you undeniable proof that He did. This is why faith is “the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). God always gives you a reliable revelation and abundant evidence for whatever He wants you to put your faith in. Faith without a revelation from God is fantasy. Faith without evidence from God is foolishness. In the biblical Christian life there is no such thing as a “leap of faith” without proof, reason, or wisdom.

Even Jesus knew your faith in God depends on evidence and experience. This is why He encouraged faith in God’s provision by telling you to “Look at the birds” and how “your heavenly Father feeds them” and to conclude you are, “far more valuable to him than they are” (Matt 6:26). Christ expected your faith in the invisible God and His desire to care for you to be based on evidence you could see in nature.

What about faith in God’s love? First, you have abundant revelation from Scripture that God loves you. You will study many of these promises in the following chapters. But Scripture does not just tell you God loves you. It also tells you historical events that prove His love for you. The Bible says: “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Rom 5:8). The greatest proof that God loves you is the sacrificial and unconditional love He gave you in sacrificing His Son for your sins on a painful, bloody cross.

Unfortunately, many people constantly want God to keep proving His love for them. If He does not grant their prayers, protect their health, or provide their wealth, they doubt His love. They forget that the precious blood of God’s Son to pay for all their sins is more valuable and convincing than anything else God could do. Since the cross of Christ, it is no longer God’s love for you that is on trial. What is being tested now is your love for God. God has already proven His love for you for all time. The real question is how will you prove your love for Him?

However, a very important thing to understand is that your faith in God’s love does not come from the mere understanding of Scripture, but even more from the experience of life. This is why you will notice that older, more mature Christians have a stronger faith and greater trust in God. They have experienced His love, blessing, protection, and provision more.

Likewise, it is important for you to recognize and remember the many more recent proofs of God’s love for you than the cross. For example, you know He has indwelled you with His Spirit and changed your life. And when you think about your life you see many, many ways that God has provided for, protected, and blessed you. The Bible says, “Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father” (Jas 1:17). Every good thing you have is proof of God’s love for you.

The life of David shows you how your faith in God grows through experience. Why did David have such certain faith that he would kill Goliath? King Saul said to him: “There’s no way you can fight this Philistine and possibly win! You’re only a boy, and he’s been a man of war since his youth.” (1 Sam 17:33). David replied:

“I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats. When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine too . . . The LORD who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” (1 Sam 17:34-37)

Do you see how God grew David’s faith through the evidence of difficult and scary experiences like lions and bears!? Do you see how important it was for David to remember what God had done for him so he was ready to tackle the next test of faith God brought into his life? ^[1]

Forgetting reduces your faith

Do not make the same mistake as: “The warriors of Ephraim [who were] armed with bows” but “turned their backs and fled on the day of battle.” Why? Because “They forgot what he had done-the great wonders he had shown them” (Ps 78:9-11).

Never forget all of the good things God has done for you and given to you! This is especially important because bad things also happen. Things that imply God does not care about you. He lets you get hurt. He lets people you love die. He sometimes does not grant your prayers. And these painful experiences are a powerful attack on your faith in God’s love.

But you need to understand God’s purposes for evil and pain. We discuss these things elsewhere in Christian Essentials study #3: FAITH. But one thing can be said here. God always allows painful events to actually reveal more of His love to you. Many who have been through the “deserts” of life with God are very thankful for them because they experienced God’s love in extraordinary ways. The Psalmist said: “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees” (Ps 119:71).

God wants you to grow in your faith in Him because: “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Cor 5:14 NIV) to live the life God wants. How much you love and obey God depends on how much you believe He loves you.

► Return to the beginning and answer the questions there.

► Recite Romans 12:2 from memory.

► Memorize 2 Corinthians 5:14 in the translation above or another one.

► Hopefully you have been using the “P.O.W.E.R. Plan” for God Times in Appendix A. You will notice the first step is to “Praise” and thank God for how He has revealed His love for you. Praising Him strengthens and protects your faith in Him.

► Complete Project 2E on the next page: “Counting My Blessings.”

The topic of faith in Scripture is rather complex because it is used in so many different ways. For a better understanding of biblical faith see the optional reading in Appendix H: “The Seven Types of Faith in Scripture.” ↑