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9th July 2025
WednesdayReflection
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John Piper
founder and teacher of Desiring God.com
"You should not only love
God ..."
Luke 10 v 25-37
When the lawyer says at the end of Luke 10:27 that you should not only love God, but also love your neighbour as yourself, Jesus approved of that answer.
To love your neighbour as you love yourself is to make your own self-care the measure of your care for others.
If you ask Jesus a question, it better be because you want to know, not because you want to trip him up.
If you come to Jesus like the lawyer, he will trap you in your own words.
There are two ways you can understand Jesus's approval of the lawyer's answer.
Jesus may be saying, "That's right, Mr. Lawyer, if you choose the path of law-keeping, then following these two commandments is the way to go about it."
Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbour as yourself.
And you must do it perfectly if you're going to show, that you deserve to be in the presence of the perfectly holy God, by law-keeping."
If that's the way you understand it, then Jesus would be showing the lawyer that he'll never be able to do that, and that he should look away from law-keeping to the work of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, justification by faith, and salvation by grace, not works.
But there's another way to understand this text, which I'm inclined to think is closer to the mind of Christ.
It is the path that you are on right now, if you are a Christian - if you are saved by grace through faith.
Luke wants us to know, that Jesus died for our sins, and that we are justified, and that our sins are forgiven by faith, not by works of the law, and that we receive the Holy Spirit and are changed from the inside by turning to Jesus and renouncing law-keeping as a way of earning eternal life.
But rejecting law-keeping as a way of earning eternal life does not mean rejecting love - for God and neighbour - as the path that leads to eternal life.
The apostle Paul said to the Christian church at Corinth, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed" (1 Corinthians 16:22).
No love for God, no eternal life.
That's true for Christians. And earlier in the same book he said, "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing"
(1 Corinthians 13:3).
No love for people, no eternal life.
Why?
This is not about earning life.
The apostle John puts it like this:
"We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. . . .
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love"
(1 John 3:14; 4:8).
Loving God and loving neighbour is necessary to inherit eternal life not because it is a work of merit to earn life, but because it is a fruit of the Spirit that proves life is present.
"Christ died to create a people who are so secure, and so content in Christ, that we move toward need, not comfort."
How can I become the kind of person who, instead of moving to the other side of the road (or the other side of town), moves toward need and sacrifice and risk?
For decades at 'Bethlehem' (church) one of our standing mottos for the neighbourhoods and for the nations was this:
"Christians move toward need, not comfort."
And hundreds have found, as Jesus says, that "it is more blessed to give than to receive"
(Acts 20:35).
More blessed to move toward need than comfort.
The risk of crossing the road, or the ocean, is worth it.
Remember this: among the many things in Luke's Gospel is this great word of Jesus:
"This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood"
(Luke 22:20).
Christ died to create a people who are so secure, and so content in Christ, that we move toward need, not comfort.
><(((°>
Un-edited version, (MUCH MORE) available on request
(and Bible references)
John Piper
is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. Read more about John.
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