It’s getting close to that time when people are supposed to buy into the commercialization of love! Every retail store and every food chain takes the opportunity to capitalize on Valentine’s Day. Restaurants are booked to the max, and boxes of chocolate candy and cute stuffed animals line the aisles at department stores. Not to mention, your mailbox and internet are full of advertisements. Everyone wants your money in the name of love. The problem is that most don’t even know what love is. They seek to sell love and we buy into it thinking it will show our true love to others. However, true love is not a one-day thing. True love is never-ending. We are to “walk in love.” It should be a continuous action that should only get stronger as you get closer to the one whom the Bible defines as love. God.
Ephesians 5:1-2 “Be ye, therefore, followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.”
In Ephesians 5:1, we are told to be a follower of God. Just like a child tries to walk in his father’s footsteps, we should walk in God’s. We are to imitate God. Paul had exhorted them in the previous chapter to not allow any evil in their lives. He told them to put away anger, malice, and evil speaking. He gave them the recipe for being able to imitate God. Put away the bad, and put on being kind to one another. Have a tender heart toward each other, and forgive each other, because that is what God has done for us.
Ephesians 4:31-32 “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
We must be striving to live toward fellow Christians in this way before we can walk in love. While God is perfect in all His ways, His mercy, His grace, His holiness, and forgiveness. It is His love that prompts Him to show mercy to us. It is His love that bestows His grace, “God’s riches at Christ’s expense,” on us. It is His love that sent His Son to the cross because His holiness cannot be in the presence of sin. It is because of His love that He allowed Christ to be the sacrifice for our sins so we could be forgiven. Because of all He has done for us, we should have a consuming desire to imitate His actions in our daily interactions with others.
In the original language, Greek, the word walk means to tread all around, to be occupied with, and to follow. It’s not a stroll as we would picture walking, but it is deliberate, calculated, and purposeful. We should walk in love and it should influence everything about us. There is no better way to show Christ to a dying world, or fellow brothers and sisters in Christ than to love like God. This love is forgiving and sacrificial, and these actions of love will prove the sincerity of our love. In John 14:15, Jesus said if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. We are commanded to love the way God loves. It is not enough to say you love someone. You must show it. Words are cheap, but words backed by actions are priceless!
