Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - True Love | New Testament | 2 John

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

What do you think of when you hear "true love"? A romantic movie? Your parents? Maybe you don't believe in true love at all. Spoiler alert: true love does exist and it's not found in Hollywood movies. Jensen looks at 2 John to discuss all things love. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Prepare your heart to celebrate Jesus. Sign up to have the 'I Am Your God' Advent Devotional delivered directly to your inbox starting Sunday, Dec. 3, 2023. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 John

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. True love. What is it really? Everyone has an opinion. Fairy tales, movies, journalists, activists, religions, magazines, everyone talks about love. We read books about love, watch movies about love.

And each one of those things is teaching us about what it's created. believes that love is. But what is it really? See, we live in a world where loving someone has become synonymous with total acceptance. Loving someone is accepting them as they are, not asking them to change, not asking them to be something that they're not. Thought leader and activist Glennon Doyle writes this about love. The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the future, just love. Now, the insinuation here is that love is merely a feeling, an offering of acceptance, of kindness, but that it cannot question, it cannot nudge, it cannot suggest,

to truly love is to accept someone as they are. Now, this is a modern version of love. It's not the version of love that we find in the Bible. See, Second John is a letter written by John to a church, commending them for walking in truth and encouraging them to continue in doing so. And in this very short book, we find a beautiful picture of what real love is. Now, for context, before we start reading, he refers to the church as dear lady and members of the church as her children.

Verse 3. Grace, mercy, and peace. from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, will be with us in truth and love. It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another, and this is love, that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love.

So first, we learn that John finds joy that members of this church are walking in truth. Love rejoices when others are faithfully following God. And then he shifts. He shifts to remind her of a command that has always been for the people of God. He asks them to love one another. And he further explains what love is. He says, love is walking in obedience to God's command. and his command is that you walk in love.

It's a fun full circle moment, but we can find clues as to what John is saying in the surrounding verses. First, we learn in verse three that grace, mercy, and peace from God will be with believers in truth and love. And while the members of this church are commended on holding to truth, they're being reminded to continue on in love, to continue walking in obedience to God's command, because obedience to God is to love the people around you. See, John is tightly tying together the fact that love cannot be found without truth,

and truth without love is not true obedience. This is very different than our modern culture's definition of love. But it's not that different from the definition of love that you and I will find many, many, parents of toddlers living out on a daily basis. My toddler is stubborn. He wants what he wants, and he doesn't like to be told no. I could show him the kind of love that is acceptance, giving him candy when he wants it, letting him run into the street when he feels like it, turning on the television every day all day so that he can watch Bluey and sitting idly by while he hits his friends and breaks his toys when he's frustrated. I could accept him as he is.

I could love him and comfort him and give him what he wants. But we all know that that isn't really loving him, is it? It's not loving to let Jude eat candy until he feels sick. It's not loving to let him play in the street when I know that there are cars coming. It's not loving to let him become addicted to television or to break all his toys and lose all his friends because he hits them. It is not loving to let my son continue to live in the sin he was born into. Instead, I show him love by saying,

know, by setting up boundaries, by helping him see what is good for him. I tell him truth about how the world works even when it makes him mad. I ask him to obey me because he loves me, and I love him, and he knows that I want what is best for him, even if it's not what he thinks is good. See, when we obey God, when we live by his commands, we are called to live in a way that is loving to the world around us and shows our love for God. We trust him. We trust that he is good and that his commands call us to live in a way that is good for us. Holding to the commands set in the Bible, helping those around us to see the truth of who God is and the goodness of the life that he's called us to is the greatest form of love that there is. Indulging the feelings and actions of the people we love is not showing them love.

We must also offer truth. Not from a place. of superiority, but out of genuine, humble, sacrificial love, the same love that Jesus showed to humanity when he gave his life so that they might find everlasting life in his kingdom. Now, let me be the first to say that this is not easy. It's one thing to tell my toddler that it's not okay to run into the street when the danger of the oncoming traffic is so clear. It's another to lovingly help a friend see that their frustration with their husband might be coming from a place of selfishness. The dangers of indulging selfishness are less obvious, but the effect that unchecked selfishness can have on a marriage is dangerous. It is not loving for me to just agree with my friend to make her feel good in the moment.

It's not loving to hold my tongue and comfort. It is loving to help my friend see truth, to step up along. side her and support her as she attempts to live in obedience to God as well. Just as John rejoices out of love in the faithfulness of this church, we too should rejoice in the faithfulness of those around us. It is loving to wisely and gently counsel the people around us in truth. See, if we believe that God is good, that he created humans to live in a certain way, then we have to believe that the highest good for every single person is to live by his commands, that the most loving thing to do is to help them see the truth of the gospel and walk in obedience to Christ. Love and truth must be bound together.

As we walk in obedience, we will love those around us, and as we love those around us with the love of Christ, we will walk in obedience. God loved us so much that he would not leave us to our own sin. He would not allow us to continue on in rebellion against him. Instead, he came down and lived a sinless life so that we could be set free from the bondage of sin and be free to live as we were created to in obedience to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is love. And may that be the love that guides all of our relationships, our actions, and our lives. May we walk in obedience to God's commands all the days of our life. life.