I have been thinking
about love as an emotion a lot lately. How much this emotion can control you
and how it can make you do things you would have never dreamed of doing before. There is
the love you feel for another person, the love another person feels for you, the
love that you see other people show to each other and even the love that you
wish you were receiving from someone. I come in contact with so many people in
a day and I show love to them, or fail to show love to them in many different
ways. Some of those people are easy to love and I can’t get enough of them and
other people take a little more effort to care for.
But, regardless of
how lovable the people in our lives are, we are expected, required even as
believers, to love them. We are to love those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44),
love those who sin against us (Matthew 18:15), and love those who have nothing
to offer (James 2:1-7). We are to be
patient, kind, humble, thoughtful, sacrificial, joyful, and persevering in
love.
When you are
reaching out to love others you are putting a lot on the line. You are allowing
yourself to be exposed and put in a position allowing someone to possibly take
advantage of you. Sometimes the return is wonderful and will lift your spirits
and other times it feels like a slap in the face because you quickly realize
that the other person does not have the same interest in loving you back.
Why does God want us
to experience this? Why does he want his children to abandon all and reach out
to others in such a vulnerable way? The answer is always Christ. Christ
knowingly showed love to those who had no intent in loving him back. He loved
those who might have been a bit needy (Luke 9:10-17), selfish (Luke 18:23), hypocritical
(John 8:1-11), backstabbing (John 18:2-3), cowardly (John 20:19), and just
simply hateful (Luke 22:63-65). Christ loved the unlovable.
But he also loved
those who would wash his feet with their perfume, hair, and tears (Luke
7:36-40), give as much as they have in offering to him (Mark 12:41-44), humbly
prepare the way for his ministry (Matthew 3:1-12), listen to his words with complete
abandon of all other things (Luke 10:38-42), defend him (Luke 22:50), give
years of their lives to follow him (Luke 5:1-11), and even die for him (Acts
7:54-60).
Not to even mention
the love he has for the rest of the world outside of those recorded in the
Bible. When we sit down and seriously think about all the offenses that we have
against Christ and how he still gave his life for us, how can we say that
someone else is too difficult for us to love? I’m not saying that I am perfect
in this regard or I don’t have times that I avoid walking past someone trying
to keep from hearing their next request for help, or I don’t become frustrated
with people who aren’t what I think they should be. I fail so many times in
this area, but God is quick to convict my heart and he is teaching me to
consider how hard I am to love before I pass judgment on someone else.
I praise God for his
patience, kindness, generosity towards me. I am thankful that God’s love truly
does bear all things, hopes all things, and believes all things. His love never
fails even when mine often does.
No comments:
Post a Comment