A Lack of Love is Major Moral Failure
Major moral failure within evangelical Christianity typically focuses on three major areas…sex, money, and power. Church scandals almost always involve one or more of these abuses. When someone in leadership has an affair, steals money, or uses power to hurt people, we take notice and take action. What if we were able to spot major moral failure before it manifested in one of those three areas?
Abuses of sex, money, and power are certainly problematic and damaging, but they are symptomatic a greater root problem that could be diagnosed much earlier and addressed before blowing up lives and wrecking entire communities. A lack of love is major moral failure. It is the core cause for all other moral failures.
When people do not love with God’s love like He loves, sin increases. This is true for all people…not just Christian leaders. When we give up on love, we give up on Jesus. When we give up on Jesus, we become our own gods. When we become our own gods, we do horrible things.
Without love there is no personal restraint. Love is what drives obedience. Love God and love people. All the Law and the prophets hang on those two commands. It is impossible to obey God without love.
“Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:23-24 NIV)
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35 NIV)
It is crucial to recognize when love is missing so that we take drastic action to repent and return to our first love. Here are some early symptoms of a lack of love:
Empty Spirituality – We talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. We perform religious duties that bear no spiritual fruit. We replace relational knowledge of God with intellectual knowledge that puffs up instead of builds up.
Broken Relationships – Love is the fuel for godly relationships. When we stop loving God and people, every relationship suffers. We become impatient, arrogant, rude, self-seeking, harsh, and resentful. It becomes impossible to bear with others and ourselves when we lack love.
Emotional Decay – The lack of love results in a cold heart, hopelessness, and the loss of joy. Our hearts grow hard as we become numb to God and the world around us. We lose all sensitivity and seek increasingly dangerous ways to feel anything.
“They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.” (Ephesians 4:18-19 NIV)
The lack of love is easy to spot if you look for it. Look for things like defensiveness, personal agendas, pride, legalism, no accountability, being argumentative, judgmental, and unapproachable. A lack of love is the first and greatest major moral failure.
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8 NIV)
