What is love?
I would like to begin by defining love as it stands for all confessing Christian believers.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love here is portrayed as a set of actions something that transcends thoughts and feelings putting things as they should be in the proper perspective. But even though this bears a literal meaning I often wonder how many of us cling to what this actually is?
Do we as confessing Christians truly believe that we live in love but yet are lacking some of the essentials that define it? Or do we believe or should we believe that circumstance and feelings guide this definition? One thing is for certain is that people who call on the name of Christ to be saved have been commanded to love. This principle does not only apply to those we feel like loving but those who we honestly cannot stand as well. I would even go beyond this and remind us that Christ COMMANDED us to love our enemies, even the ones that some how we cannot logically bring ourselves to forgive. This includes the ones that have harmed us, persecuted us, offended us and insulted us in every way.
There is no escaping the command and we cannot live in disobedience. So now we are left with the question… how?
This is no simple task and this is what I wrestle with and have wrestled with for many seasons. What does it mean to love one’s enemy? This can appear in many ways. To not curse them, to not defame them, to not wish for evil upon them, to pray for them, to do acts of great good for them despite what they may have done and plenty of other examples that do not match the standard response of the world. Christ describes a whole list of things we should be doing for our enemies in Luke 6: 27-36
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
This sort of instructions assaults our intuition because what we were taught by the world was almost exactly opposite. We are used to acting out of revenge and out of spite. We are used to demonizing our enemies and cheering for their demise. But this is not the way God has commanded us to be. We are not to be clones of the world selfishly indulging in the same activities and sharing in the same perspectives of the flesh, no we have been born again into a new spiritual home and we are under new guidance. This path requires a tremendous amount of discipline. It is not easy to love someone who has hurt you or hurt others. It is not easy to love someone who the rest of the culture demonizes. But we were not called to a life of easiness or comfort! NO! we have been set apart, rescued to live in a different manner, to be a city on a hill, a light to the nations!
I believe this can only be done with the power of God and a fully submitted person. By nature we have learned to be angry and bitter but it is by God that we learn to be merciful, loving and forgiving. I believe the real change starts with perspective. We have to realize that we have all sinned before God and that we are all truly worthy of eternal punishment. We are not worthy of the love God shows us, we are not worthy of the forgiveness, we are not worthy of anything of our own merit but it is the sacrifice of God that has redeemed us. Nothing separates us from the world except for the sacrifice of Christ.
When will we realize that love is the only thing that will conquer all? It is love that restores, renews and rebuilds. There is nothing in this world that is more powerful. When will we as believers really come to understand this? Why do we persist in spitting on the sacrifice of Christ with our hatred and our anger? Most of all when will we realize that a relationship with Christ costs us Everything and that we no longer belong to ourselves and we are not to behave in a way to blaspheme or disgrace his name.
If we do not live faithfully to the teachings of Christ then who will take us seriously when we preach the gospel? Better yet will you be saved in the end? This life isn’t about us, it isn’t about what we want and what we command but what God has provided for us. We were created to love and to worship. It was because of God’s love that we even have an opportunity to be saved and for no other reason. Perhaps we should continue to remember that as we live our lives and with everything in us dedicate ourselves to love and pray for God to rid us of selfishness, hatred, bitterness, anger and all unrighteousness.
I write this to myself as much as I do to you. I have fallen short in this area many times but it is no excuse to live in sin. God has provided mercy for repentance and grace for the weak in resolve. Do not give up in striving towards sanctification we have been called to obedience and I will strive everyday to keep myself fully submitted to Christ so that I may be completely dead in my flesh and that he may live through me. So I challenge all of us to pick up our cross and follow Christ even when it hurts.
Reverent Reflections 