To Encourage You

1 Peter 4:8 “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”

How earnestly do you love?  What’s the extent of it?  How far does your love stretch before it breaks? What’s its “tensile strength,” if you will?  We can get some insight into this from the verse above.  In essence Peter is telling us that we can get a very good comprehension of how much we love another person by the way we react to their sin.  Think, for example, of the way a loving mother reacts to the sins of one of her children.  While she will be quick to confront and discipline her children’s sins if she really loves them, she will be just as quick to forgive them.  She will be very aware of her children’s wrongdoing, probably more aware than most, yet she doesn’t quit loving if her child keeps sinning, even though he or she sins A LOT.  She has an attitude like that King David saw in his God, when he said, “For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive” (Psalm 86:5, KJV).  And oh, how well David knew this, as he thought back over his life.

The verse above from 1 Peter is a quote from the Old Testament, Proverbs 10:12, where it says, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.”  As with so many other places in the Bible that deal with this same subject, love is defined not so much by words as by actions.  Think about 1 Corinthians 13, which many have called “the love chapter.” Notice how love is described. It’s not a definition like we might find in a modern dictionary. Rather, it’s a list of behaviors that show love in one’s actions: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Notice how it never describes love as an emotional feeling, but as a behavior springing from a godly attitude. 

So back to the verse above as just such an example.  A person will love another person earnestly when they consider how great the love of Christ is for them. Peter knew this full well, as he was one who had denied his Savior while He was in the very process of suffering and dying for Peter’s sin. Peter’s three denials were despicable and cowardly acts, yet Jesus restored rather than condemned him for it.  And Peter certainly remembered Jesus’ answer to him when he had asked, “’Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times’” (Matthew 18:21-22). 

So, aren’t you thankful for the forgiving heart of God? Aren’t you grateful that He came to earth to bear the punishment that was due us for our sin so that we might be forgiven for all eternity? As Jesus said to His disciples “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:3). That’s exactly what Jesus did when He gave His life as the atonement, the everlasting covering, for our sins.  And if we love another person, it will be the bent of our hearts to forgive, and thus cover, the sin of those who sin against us.