Set Free to Love Others
“Hey Mom, watch this! Look at me! Watch, Mom!”
As a mom to four girls, this was the refrain of more than a decade of my life. Handstands in the pool, high jumps off the swing, twirling in the living room. They delighted to show me their new skills, and I delighted to watch them.
So it is between parent and child. Smitten, we parents gaze at our kids while they sleep, rejoice when they read their first words, throw our hands in the air when they score their first goal. We’re sure they are geniuses, destined for greatness.
And our kids want nothing more than to make us happy. It’s our praise they long to hear, our applause, our “oh-wow-you-are-one-amazing-kid!” response. They know we delight in them and they want to delight us. What a pure and precious, albeit short-lived, season of parenting it is.
But not every parent is delighted with their child.
A DISTORTED PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP
Imagine parent with a cold heart; a parent who’s less than impressed with their kid. “Eh. That wasn’t that great,” he responds when his son runs a fifty-yard touchdown, “I’ve seen better.”
The child cries over and over, “Watch me!” because he badly wants to earn his dad’s approval. He wants to glimpse a smile, some small evidence of pleasure. He practices for hours a day, forces his body to run faster and harder, and strives to earn his father’s favor. He just wants to know that he is loved, delighted in, rejoiced over.
Some don’t have to use their imaginations, unfortunately. This was their childhood.
Now imagine a twist on this parent-child dynamic. What about placing the boy who so badly wants to earn favor with a parent who already delights in him, except the boy doesn’t believe it?
Imagine a child who works and works, trains and trains, tries and tries. He yells out, “Did you see that, Mom and Dad? Was that good enough? Did you like it?” And they respond, “Yes, Son, we saw it. We love it! Well done. You don’t have to keep training so hard, though. We are already delighted in you as it is!”
The parents in this scenario treasure their son and regularly display their affection, but he doesn’t believe it. Even though they have proven their love over and over, he thinks they must really be like the second father—the one who’s distant and unimpressed. He refuses their warm embrace, their joy, their delight in who he is. He just can’t accept that he is dearly loved. He’s convinced they are far off.
OUTWARD ACTS VS. INNER MOTIVES
In each scenario above, the children’s actions are the same. Each time, the kids are jumping, running, singing, and seeking their parents’ praises. On the outside, we see the same from each of them: skills and abilities performed for their parents.
But on the inside, there’s a different story. The children who know and believe they are loved and accepted perform from security, while the child who does not believe he is loved and accepted performs from insecurity. In the former, the child feels her parent’s pleasure and wants to give them more. In the latter, the child perceives rejection and senses that he’s not good enough and must keep trying harder, even though their parent repeatedly communicates love and approval.
The outward acts are the same, but the inward hearts and motives are very different.
We who are followers of Christ, children of God, can be like the children in either scenario. We can also produce outward acts that look the same but come from very different hearts and motives. We can serve God from a heart that is secure in his love. Or we can serve God from insecurity and a false idea that we must earn his favor, even though he has already proven it.
FAITH EXPRESSING ITSELF IN LOVE
The Bible tells us that life flows from the heart (Prov. 4:23). Jesus says even our words come from the heart (Matt. 15:18). Our hearts matter. The motives behind our actions matter.
Paul tells the Galatians, “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Gal. 5:6). In other words, it’s not circumcision that matters. This outward act isn’t what Jesus is interested in. All that counts for Christians, Paul says, is faith expressing itself in acts of love.
So we must look within and determine if our actions are produced by love or by something else. Do we obey the Lord because we know we are dearly loved and simply want to delight him? Or are we doing acts of righteousness because we feel compelled to earn God’s favor when he has already lavishly given it?
Paul also says to the Galatians, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 3:20). He is confident in God’s love because Jesus gave himself up for him. We must only look to the cross to remember how much God loves us. And Jesus’ display of selfless love caused Paul to live by faith—faith that God does love him, faith that he is treasured by his Father in heaven, faith that he is eternally secure because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross.
SET FREE TO LOVE
“For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul says (Gal. 5:1). God’s lavish love—displayed on the cross, displayed in creation, displayed through the Spirit living inside of us, displayed in the resurrection, displayed in the Word of God—is meant to set us free.
God’s desire is that we would grab hold of his love, believe it, be warmly embraced by it, and that his love would well up within us as faith, which is then expressed as acts of love towards God and others.
It’s a cycle: We receive God’s love, it produces faith, and we express our faith in acts of love back to him. The cycle is secure, sure, already set in motion by Jesus, who rescued and redeemed us.
Brothers and sisters, Paul says that faith working through love is all that counts in the Christian life.
May we behave as children who are dearly loved. May we be like children who rightly want to delight their parents, rather than children who wrongly believe they must earn God’s favor.
May we know that we are set free by God’s love and return it in acts of love that surely delight him.
Author’s Note: This article first appeared at GCD in November 2019.