What’s The Accurate Indicator of Our Love For God?

I love developing my own story that relates to a teaching or preaching topic. However, sometimes I encounter a story that relates well that I need to share with others. As I prepared the 2021 December Pastor’s Corner, I discovered such a story written by Rev. Dr. Tony Evans. In his book titled Book of Illustrations, he shares the following:

Our fellowship with God is validated or invalidated by the love of others. When I was a boy, I went to an elementary school three blocks from my home in Baltimore. The classrooms had radiators in them, and the radiators had hot water in them, and they produced steam, and that’s how you warmed up your room. It was during the days of the old radiators that would heat the buildings. In the good old days, you would turn the knob to get more steam or turn it down to get less steam.

Well, I got to know a janitor there—we just kind of became friends—and he invited me to the boiler room one time. The boiler room was where all the mechanics were to produce all the hot water for all the rooms and the radiators in the rooms. I’ll never forget the sight of this gargantuan tank in the middle of the room. When I asked about the huge cylinder, the janitor told me that the water for heating the classrooms got boiled in there.

I happened to notice that on the side of this humongous tank, a little tiny cylinder hung in place. There was a little line on it with water going up to the line. The janitor explained to me that it was an indicator that showed how much water was in the tank. Because the tank itself was too hot to inspect firsthand, the indicator was in place to show what was going on inside the tank and whether the water was at the appropriate heat to warm the building.

Many people come to church looking to feel God in their bones, and feel Him in their feet, and feel Him all over, but that feeling is not the true indicator that God looks at to measure how full of Him we are. His indicator is our love for one another. Love for other brothers and sisters is proof positive or proof negative of our love or lack thereof for God. Source: Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking.

I can relate to Pastor Evans’ testimony about the accurate indicator of our love for God. Early in my Christian journey, I wanted to feel God. I erroneously thought that the closer I got to God, the more I would feel God’s presence. However, as I grew in my knowledge and understanding of HIM, I learned that there would be times when God would not feel close in my life (Ps. 22:1-5; Matt. 27:46). Since there will be times when God will not feel close, it would not be a wise decision to base my intimacy and love for Him on how I feel. Pastor Evans says that the correct indicator of love and an intimate relationship with God is our love for others and I agree with him. Our love for others should always be the standard and indicator of our love and intimacy with God.

In 1 John 4:20, as John writes to believers in the Christian church, he challenges us to go beyond pretending to love God. Sometimes Christians like to boast or speak highly of their love for God. However, it is difficult to prove whether we love God because we cannot see God based on our actions toward Him. Still, God has given us a way to demonstrate our love for him by reflecting our love for Him through our love for His children and our brothers and sisters in Christ, whom we can see. Earlier in 1 John 4, John writes, “No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” Every day, God gives us someone to love. We should love the people that God gives us to love. John says that when we claim to love God and we “hate” those whom He has given us to love, we are “liars” (1 John 4:20).

God wants us to know that the accurate indicator of our love for Him is our love for others. It is easy to say that we love God because that remains in the abstract. However, the truest test of our love happens when we have to make our love for God practical by loving others in the body of Christ. We should never forget that God wants us to love those who are easy and those who are challenging to love. Anyone can love someone who makes it easy for us to love. But God wants us to also love those who may seem unlovable. If we love others the way God loves us, we can love the lovable and the seemingly unlovable. According to Paul, God showed His love for us when we seemed unlovable (Rom. 5:8). Hence, the Lord’s love for us should be an essential motivation toward our love for others (1 Cor. 5:14).

When we focus on loving others, we display the accurate indicator of our love for God. From now on, we should make the most of every opportunity that God gives us to love others. Thus, do your best to show the world the accurate indicator of your love and intimate relationship with God by loving others.