True Love: Faith in the Wilderness
The word “honest” does not only mean we do not lie or bear false witness. Originally, it meant to be exposed under the sun for inspection. It is said that in ancient Greece, those who tried to sell marble statues would seal defects and cracks with wax. While inexperienced buyers were deceived, experienced buyers would test whether the marble statue was pure by asking the seller to move the statue from a shadowy area to be exposed under the sun for a time to test whether there was wax stuffed in the cracks. The sun would melt away any wax and reveal any defects or cracks.
For believers today, suffering, like exposure under the sun, can reveal whether there are cracks or breaches in our spiritual life. During suffering, there will be many who forsake the faith; there will be many who run away or even betray the Lord. We must remember that roughly sixty years ago, more than half of the Christians in the Chinese church jointly signed a statement to betray the Lord.[1]
Betrayal takes place not only in formal, written forms. Today, many believers deny the Lord through countless little things in their daily lives. One who claims to be a Christian does not go to worship the Lord time and time again in order to make more money. One who claims to be a Christian rides the fence and will not confess his identity as a Christian before nonbelievers. One who claims to be a Christian issues fake invoices and cooks the books. These are people who deny and betray the Lord. The revival of Chinese house churches is not God’s reward to a faithful church, but grace to an unfaithful church.
Of course, you might say that even the Lord gave Peter the chance to turn back. The Lord died on the cross for Peter, who denied him three times, but he did not die on the cross for Judas, who betrayed the Lord without repentance. The grace of the Lord urges us to repent, rather than to indulge in sin. For those who repent because of the grace of the gospel, if they turn around and continue to follow the Lord, not only will they pass the test of suffering in this life, they will also pass judgment on the day of Christ. The text here says, “Be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” The day of Christ, which is judgment day, will reveal the truth for all who claim Jesus Christ as Lord and claim to be Christians. Suffering is a test for us as Christians. It shows us whether or not we have cracks, whether or not we are counterfeit.
A pandemic is a special test. A family of eight living in the city of Songzi in Hubei Province was in the news. They had nine guests who planned to return home on February 2, but then the city was locked down. These nine guests were in-laws of the host family, who came to visit them in Hubei with all nine members of the household. The two families had not met since their children were married fifteen years prior, and they planned to spend some good time together over Spring Festival vacation.
The guests ended up staying with the host for over forty days, consuming most of the chickens the host raised at home, all the ducks (in addition to a few dozen more they bought), a few pigs, and cooking an additional nine pounds of rice at each meal. The main issue was that there were not enough beds for everyone, and the host couple slept on the floor next to the bathroom. For each meal, the host cooked for seventeen people, an overwhelming task for anyone. But the host said: “Those forty days were pretty good. We had friction, but no conflict.” In such a test of hospitality, this host family did much better than we could have. Just imagine how you would behave if you had seventeen people, host and guests included, living at your home for over forty days . . .
Paul wishes that his brothers and sisters in the Philippian church may abound more and more in love, with knowledge and discernment, so that they may discern the best, be pure and blameless, and be filled with the fruit of righteousness. Do we have such love for our fellow citizens? During the pandemic, it was hard to have enough love for our fellow citizens. We all know love is needed, but our hearts are often cold. During the pandemic, we saw dark, evil, and ugly things, which made it hard for us to love some people.
Why can Paul love so much, but we cannot? The more you know about a person, the harder it is to love. This is why it is hard for family members to get along. The less you know about a person, the easier it is to love them. If we cannot even love our own family, what are we to do? Paul writes “with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:8), meaning that his love for the brothers and sisters comes from Jesus. God knows us so well that he knows everything. He tests our hearts and minds. But God knows us and still loves us.
The affection of Jesus Christ is to love the unlovable.
This post is excerpted from Faith in the Wilderness: Words of Exhortation from the Chinese Church, edited by Hannah Nation and Simon Liu (Kirkdale Press, 2022).
Victor Guo is the pastor of a reformed house church.
[1] In 1950, “The Christian Manifesto” was published by Wu Yaozong and promoted by various Christian leaders. The document called for Christian support of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was used as a litmus test for patriotic submission of Christians to the CCP. By 1954, 417,389 Christians—about one half of all Protestant Christians in China— had signed the manifesto.