Excerpted from Here to Love: Recapturing the Centrality of Jesus’ Greatest Command by Chris Cipollone. Used by permission of The Good Book Company.

It’s Not Just a Test

For many years, I assumed (subconsciously, I think!) that when God gives us commands to follow, he’s doing it to test our faith. To make us prove how much we love him. It wasn’t until I became a father that I realised that God was not best understood as a teacher or coach who I was trying to impress. Rather, I was a beloved son in the hands of a heavenly dad who had my best interests at heart.

The book of Proverbs was one of the ways the Holy Spirit led me to this realisation. Proverbs pushes us to see the correlation between listening to God and positive outcomes for ourselves. For example...

My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity.

Proverbs 3:1-2

We must be careful not to import our Western, capitalist expectations into a passage like this. I don’t think it’s saying that we’re all destined to be billionaires. But we also shouldn’t write off these kinds of promises as poetic delusions. Proverbs shows that God is not the disapproving teacher I had in my head, but rather the Father who delights in providing his children with truly good gifts. We know that the fullest, best life we so deeply yearn for will not happen until the new creation. But it’s in our lives on earth that we will experience the firstfruits of this blessing—sometimes materially and most definitely spiritually. The Christian’s journey into life to the full (John 10:10) is a journey that begins now.

What I’m saying is that living by God’s truth makes for a good life—the best life, even. Your obedience is an expression of your love for God—but also, God’s commands are an expression of his love for you.

So, the Bible’s teaching on sex within marriage is not designed to be a test of our allegiance to God, but rather a way to protect us from the emotional turmoil of temporary liaisons and to draw us into the blessings of faithfulness. Its teaching on greed and generosity is not supposed to set us up to fail, but is a way to protect our hearts from false security, to make us content with what we have and to turn us into a blessing to the poor. And the Bible gives us advice about the way we use our words because these choices will lead to very immediate outcomes of relational peace or strife!

All this is why the psalmist could write:

The law of the Lord is perfect,

refreshing the soul.

The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,

making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right,

giving joy to the heart.

The commands of the Lord are radiant,

giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is pure,

enduring for ever.

The decrees of the Lord are firm,

and all of them are righteous.

Psalm 19:7-9

Upholding God’s truth is good for you, and it’s good for those around you. And this has practical implications for how we serve God—and how we serve others.

Loving Others with God’s Truth

If you’re the kind of person who finds yourself wanting to be a defender of truth, it’s important you don’t miss this fact. God gives us his wisdom in order to bring peace, prosperity and goodness. The Bible’s commands are not grenades to be blown up in people’s faces in order to wake them up to their senses. They are expressions of love.

When you see someone living a sexually promiscuous life, or a greedy life, or an angry life, are you trying to show them the truth because you want to condemn them, or because you want to serve them? When you see a fellow believer failing to follow Jesus or making a compromise where you think they shouldn’t, do you talk to them about it in a harsh way, or in a gentle way that shows your desire is to help them enjoy the blessing of biblical living?

Is your pursuit of truth being done with a servant heart, or a self-righteous one?

We must remember the lesson of 1 Corinthians 13: that even great gifts such as biblical accuracy, if exercised without agape, are useless.

But I’m not just pointing the finger at the theological gatekeepers or keyboard warriors. I’m looking at myself as well. And I confess: I’m an appeaser. I don’t naturally like conflict. While I’ve worked at getting better at disagreeing healthily, I’ll never be a natural pot-stirrer.

For years, I’d heard that the two main responses to conflict were fight or flight. But then I was introduced to two other possibilities—freeze or fawn. This was a revelation for me, because it turns out I’m a fawner! I’m someone who is quick to agree with the other person and tends not to stand up for what I really think. I generally aim for the path of least resistance, even if it means suppressing what I believe to be true. Put another way, I err much more on the side of tolerance than truth.

I don’t think I’m alone. I suspect I’m not even in the minority. As Christianity is increasingly looked down upon in the West, I’ve found that most people’s temptation is to appease the world. God tells us to be lovers, and yet more and more it feels like we’re just being seen as haters. That can quickly become discouraging and even exhausting. No wonder we’re tempted to fawn.

But we must remember that we’re first called to love God. To serve God. To agape God. As a natural appeaser, I have to keep coming back to the fact that my relationship with God is the truest one that I have in my life, even though the opinions and agendas of other people stare me in the face every single day.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 9:10-12

While my personality type features an overinflated fear of people, I must remember that my primary fear is of Yahweh—the holy, powerful God.

At the same time, God is not only powerful. He’s good. So, any time I think I’m serving others but I’m not upholding God’s truth, I’m not actually serving them at all. Pick your moment and read the room—of course. But if I end up pointing a loved one away from God instead of towards him, then I deprive them of the opportunity to find life to the full.