How to Love Like JesusSample

Love is accountable

One of the most damaging misappropriations of Christ’s love in our culture today is the idea that Jesus just wanted us to care for and appreciate other people without regard for their sin. To be sure, Jesus did not make adherence to biblical morality a necessary precursor to the mercy and kindness he often showed to people throughout his ministry. However, he also made it clear that they could never receive the fullness of his love if they chose to remain more committed to their sin than to repentance.

Such accountability is not always seen as compatible with love. However, that reality speaks primarily to a modern misunderstanding of what it means to love well.

Only telling people what they want to hear rather than risking their ire to confront them with the truth they need to hear is one of the most selfish and unloving actions we can take in our relationships with other people. Now, we need to be wary of approaching such accountability in unloving ways, something that Christ’s example can help us avoid. But we must never let the fear of another person’s response keep us from obeying God’s call to help people face the reality of their sin and, in repentance, leave it behind to turn and run toward the grace and salvation our heavenly Father offers.

One of the best examples of how Jesus kept that balance is the story of the woman caught in adultery.

In John 8:2–11, we find Jesus teaching people at the temple in Jerusalem. In the middle of his lesson, the religious leaders interrupted Jesus by bringing before him a woman caught in adultery. They cited Moses’s command in Deuteronomy 22:22 that a woman caught in adultery should be stoned, and asked Jesus his opinion on the matter. That the man with whom she committed adultery was left alone, despite that same passage in Deuteronomy calling for him to be killed as well, provides important context for their actions.

However, if any doubt remained as to why the religious leaders brought the woman before Jesus, verse 6 explains their motivations clearly: “This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.” (John 8:6 ESV)

For their question to Jesus to be a trap, however, they had to go into it expecting Jesus to show the woman a level of mercy that exceeded their understanding of the law.

You see, mercy was such a fundamental part of Christ’s character and ministry that the religious leaders knew he would not condemn this woman according to their rules. However, what they saw as a negative was always God’s true purpose for the law: to remind us of both the standards to which we are called to live and also our inability to meet them apart from his help. The way Christ showed mercy to the woman who needed it while also calling her to “go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11 ESV) encapsulated that balance and defined much of his ministry.

When we think about loving others by helping them to repent of their sin and embrace a life of holiness, how closely do we align with Christ? Do people automatically get defensive around us because they expect a lecture and condemnation? Or are they willing to listen because they know the call to “sin no more” is accompanied by a loving acceptance of who they are as a person made in the image of God?

To put it another way, what defines people in our eyes? Is it their sin, or is it their status as someone for whom Jesus died? In either case, their sin needs to be addressed, but we are far more likely to do so in a way that honors God and draws people closer to him when that accountability comes in love rather than judgment.

So, as we finish for today, take some time to reflect on the way Jesus held people accountable. Ask him to make you aware of any sin in your life that you need to repent of today. Then ask if he wants to use you to help someone else in the same way.