“He uncomplicates us” by Sinclair Ferguson
The New Testament places massive emphasis on the importance of love. We learn that from the Lord Jesus in John 15:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you… This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:9, 12).
Paul devotes a whole chapter to love in 1 Corinthians 13, explaining why love is the greatest.
And the Apostle John tells us, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7).
But what is love? Ultimately, it’s not an emotion so much as forgetting about ourselves and living for others, being like Jesus in our devotion and care.
And yes, love is also all the things Paul says it is in 1 Corinthians 13.
It’s being patient and kind, not envying or boasting, not being arrogant or rude.
It’s being taken up with devotion to others, and that is why it doesn’t insist on its own way.
It’s not irritable or resentful.
It doesn’t rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
None of these things is actually complicated, is it?
But the problem is, we are desperately complicated by our sin. But when the Holy Spirit begins to work in us, He uncomplicates us.
He begins to fill us with love for others and forgetfulness of self.
I can’t help but think about a comment made by Peter the Venerable, the abbot of the great monastery of Cluny in the medieval days, about his much more famous friend, Bernard of Clairvaux:
“Bernard, you do all the difficult and complicated things well. But you’re failing in the simple thing. You don’t love.”
When I first read these words, they were like an arrow in my heart– doing the difficult things, but not doing the simple thing well.
I wonder if that is true of you. Perhaps you almost pride yourself in doing the difficult things well.
But have you been uncomplicated by the Lord Jesus?
Are you doing the simple thing? Do you have love?”
–Sinclair B. Ferguson, Things Unseen: One Year of Reflections on the Christian Life (Sanford, FL: Ligonier, 2024), 64-65.
