Tag: love

PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Love Those Who are Challenging to Love

Merciful Lord,
Today I pray for the compassion and capacity to love the challenging individuals(s) in my life. The reasons vary, and the level of hurt or the damage done may have been extensive, but I don’t want to hang on to bitterness or resentment. Where I seek healing from these past wounds, help me to find in you what I need, for I may never receive it from those who caused it. But by your grace I can choose forgiveness and love.

I marvel at the love that flowed from your dying lips as your heart was not concerned about revenge against the very hands that crucified you, but was instead focused on forgiveness. I crave this compassion, but I cannot extend it to others unless your unconditional love and mercy first directed at me brings about that change in my heart. Let your no-strings-attached love flow freely to me, that it might then flow through me to others – especially those most difficult to love.   

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To Redirect My Love

Loving Savior,
When I struggle to love others, it isn’t because I don’t know how to love, but because I’ve allowed my love to be misdirected. Most naturally that misdirected love is focused on me. I put myself and my priorities above your call to love and serve others first. 

But I also find my heart drawn to loving others things, not just more than my neighbor, but even more than you. Weed such idolatry out of my heart! In its place plant the seeds of your Spirit so that abundant fruit – especially love for others – may flourish and ripen in my words and actions.

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

Real Love

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(1 John 4:7-11, 19-21)

Who is it for you? An organization or a cause? A political candidate or political party? When you know the topic is love, you already know there isn’t going to be some profound revelation or new discovery regarding what the Bible has to say about love. It’s simple. Love God. Love others. Why? Because God loves you. There’s no way around it, and that will be the same message about love that you will hear from the Bible as long as you keep on reading it, listening to it, and studying it.

But it would be quite naive of us to think that just because we know what the Bible tells us about loving others that we would somehow arrive at a point when we wouldn’t need to hear it again. By that line of reasoning, a parent should only have to tell a child to go to bed at bedtime once and it should never be an issue again, right? At most, none of us should ever get more than one speeding ticket, if that, because once the officer informs us that we’re breaking the law when we exceed the speed limit, it shouldn’t happen again once we have that information. If doing what we’re supposed to do was merely a matter of information, then life would be a piece of cake!

Ah, if only it were that simple. But loving others isn’t merely a matter of transferring information; it’s a matter of transformation. If we are to carry out the kind of love God calls us to, a pretty monumental change has to take place. Where? In us.

We actually do know how to love. That isn’t the problem. We’re actually really good at it naturally. The problem just happens to be where our love is directed. I love me. And you love you. And everything in our own little personal bubbles essentially revolves around that. So if I am instead going to redirect that love toward others, as God would have me do, well, that’s unnatural. So something has to change. Something supernatural.

That’s really the message we need to keep hearing, and John repeats it for us. “God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (v.8-11). It isn’t likely new news to anyone reading this that God is love. We’ve all heard it before. We’ve seen it on wall art or displayed on the back of the car in front of us or any number or places. But for those three words to hit home, we have to personally apply them. That God who is love doesn’t just love everyone; he loves me.

Me who knows what it’s like to feel unappreciated and unloved… by my own parents. Or my children. By my supposedly close friend. By my own family. By my coworkers or classmates. By my teacher. By my coach. By my spouse. By my boss. We all have our own list, which may change for us in different seasons of life, but we all know too well, whether it’s reality or our perception, what it’s like to feel unloved. 

And these words from John remind us that that feeling is never actually reliable, because the “God-is-love” God is the God who loves me. And you. And always will.

What makes this love difficult for us to embrace and accept is that deep down inside, we know how undeserving we are of it. We have a pretty good of how many daily reasons we give for God not to love us – through our thoughts, works, and actions. Verse twenty hits just one of them, and there are so many more. John warned, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (v.20). I might think “hate” to be too strong a word to describe me, but John expands it to include any failure of loving our brother or sister, or anyone for that matter. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it makes us out to be liars to claim to love God while loathing someone else. 

And you’ll notice there are no disclaimers or allowances or exceptions. God doesn’t say we’re off the hook if it’s someone who is really hard to love. Or someone who posted something nasty online about you or someone you care about. Or someone who stole from you. Or even if it’s someone who has really hurt us or traumatized us or messed with our heads and hearts.

There are no love loopholes. We are called to embody Jesus’ perfect love to all people. And we don’t. And our guilty consciences tell us what we deserve when we don’t. 

The awareness of this guilt is evident to me as a pastor. One of the most common fears people share with me is wondering where they really stand before God because of a person or relationship they can’t bring themselves to love. Or, they agonize over how much of a struggle it is. So yes, our own consciences convict us of not loving others perfectly or completely.

And if we have somehow managed to fleece or foil our own conscience into thinking that we have no problem loving others, God’s Word makes clear what the consequence is for anything less than 100% complete and total love for others. Just one chapter earlier in this very letter John wrote, “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him” (1 John 3:15). There’s no way around it – we know what even our lukewarm love deserves!

Yet… still God loves us!

How can we know? That’s the part of John’s description we must never tire of hearing. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (v.10). God’s Son was not sent into this world only for those who love well, not for those whose love has never faltered, and not even for those who are pretty convinced their love for God meets his expectations. If those were the type of people God had sent his Son into the world for, he would have come up empty-handed. No such person has ever existed. No, Jesus came into this world to render the payment necessary for the pervasive lack of love. 

Jesus offered up himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, including but not limited to our lack of love. Jesus has restored our relationship with God that had been totaled by our sin and he has shown us what sacrificial love in action looks like. His love for others – for you and me and all people – was not deterred by selfishness or self-love. He loved – and loves – perfectly.

He loved you by never faltering in the face of temptation. He loved you by loving his enemies perfectly in your place. He loved you not just with words and speech about loving his neighbors, but by showing them in so often meeting their physical needs and healing their hurts. He loved you all the way to the cross and out of the empty tomb. The Resurrection reality is that in Jesus Christ we not only see what real love looks like; we also see that real love is ours. That real love is for us. 

So, we can now love others, too.

Why does it matter so much that we pour ourselves into loving others? So that others may come to know the source of that love. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (v.7).

Yes, God is love. You know that. I know that. Others may have heard the phrase, but they don’t know what we’ve just been talking about. They don’t know that kind of radical love. In his Gospel and all of his letters in the Bible, John more than any other writer stresses how important it is for us as Christians to love – so that the source of love can be made known. So that others, through our love, would come to know the One from whom it all emanates: God their Savior. 

Without knowing that kind of love, the world’s understanding and definition of love is really quite pitiful.  Somebody suggests a fun activity together and we’d love to. We love this place or that place to eat. We’re in love with this store or that style. We love your outfit. We love it when that happens. We love that book/movie/song/etc. We love so many things so much that we’ve diluted love altogether to essentially strip it of any real meaning. 

So let’s show a better love. A real love. Let’s love the erratic driver with a prayer for him. Let’s love the protestor who cares enough about a cause to do something instead of just spewing snarky words from behind a screen or behind closed doors. Let’s love the walker or hiker with the never-ending stories by taking the time just to listen to them on occasion. Let’s love the neighbor whose language and customs and culture are so different from ours. Let’s, even after a drama-filled, mentally and emotionally exhausting day ourselves, love our children with the gift of time together. Let’s love our spouse with more yeses and fewer excuses. Let’s love our coworker by letting them receive the praise for the project. Let’s love the addict by trying to better understand what his world is like. Let’s love by offering the ride even when it is utterly inconvenient. Let’s love by opening our home more often for meals with others. 

When we love in these ways and so many others, we take the world’s diluted love and saturate it, making it something special. When we love in these ways we demonstrate another kind of love that only finds its source in Jesus. And our prayer – and God’s intent – is that through our love others would eventually be channeled to the source of that excellent love that we find only in Christ. 

Then, like dominoes, Christ’s love begins to flow through their lives as well. Secured with the gifts of peace, joy, forgiveness, and the assurance of eternal life, they are free to love others, too. And the cycle continues, always seeing love draw others to Christ like a magnet, to show them a radical love that lasts into eternity. Not like the best kind of love the world could ever offer, but far better: real love. 

PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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To See the Opportunities to Love Others

Loving Lord,
As I seek to carry out your call to love my neighbor, I don’t always know what that looks like. Open my eyes to see all of the opportunities that surround me. 

Often I don’t have to look very far at all, as those opportunities abound right under my own roof. Other times those opportunities reveal themselves through the needs of my neighbor. When their needs require me to make sacrifices, may your love prompt me to follow your example of sacrifice and serve them in love however I’m able. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

PRAYERS FOR GUYS

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For Help with Love

Gracious Lord,
As men it is easy to avoid talking about love, as we have a tendency to downplay things like feelings and emotions as not being very masculine. Yet Jesus himself was emotional! Jesus also calls us to love – both God and our neighbor. And, it is Jesus who first loved us, which then fuels us to love others. Help me to overcome any discomfort I may have around the topic of love, to embrace your call to love, and to daily put it into practice. 

In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. 

Changed & Charged by Christ

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(2 Corinthians 5:14-21)

Since the beginning of the year, we’ve been referring to it as the “new” year, just we do every January when we switch out our completed calendars for new ones. But really, there is nothing intrinsically different between 2024 and 2023 other than the change of the last number. Just to prove my point, I went back and looked at my old calendar from last year and sure enough, there was also a January 21 in that year as well. On the last day of December, we celebrate the final hours of one year as we roll into a new year, but if you’ve ever noticed, there is no magical change that happens between 11:59 p.m. on December 31 and 12:00 a.m. on January 1. Often times the way we use the word “new” may not be in the strictest sense of the word at all, but may refer to something used that is just “new” to us. But even when something is genuinely new, the novelty of newness wears off rather quickly.

But as it’s used in our verses from 2 Corinthians, “new” represents that most dramatic change anyone could ever experience. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (v.17). The newness a person undergoes in Christ is the most radical change that can happen! It starts with trading in self-made notions and narratives of who we are and who God is for reality. Like a magician’s disappearing act, the old “pretty good” or “better than others” version we perceived of ourselves has suddenly vanished. And as it turns out, the depiction of God we had constructed who is just tickled as long as everyone is trying their best and doesn’t bother getting bent out of shape over sin – such a god doesn’t actually exist.

No, the change we’ve experienced started with the revelation of who we really are and who God really is: real sinners absolutely repugnant to a righteous God. Only then, though, is the full picture able to be seen, as the gospel reveals God’s real love that makes us righteous saints. Who we were is not who we are. Condemned sinners have become confirmed saints. The old has gone, the new is here! It’s true! In place of the damnation we deserved is the salvation that God has secured! Praise God, we have been changed in the most profound way possible – and that for eternity!

That change changes how we look at other people. “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view” (v.16). We see people differently because what Christ has done for us makes us different! We don’t see people the same way we used to. And it’s true. People who used to make our blood boil are souls for whom Jesus died. People who are polar opposites of us politically are souls for whom Jesus died. People who have no filter almost every time they open their mouths are souls for whom Jesus died. People we would otherwise want absolutely nothing to do with in life are souls for whom Jesus died. I see all of them differently now because I am different. I have changed. And I attach to them a value not that the world does (or doesn’t!), but the value of priceless worth that God attaches to each soul. This changed view we have of others also happens to line up very well with one of the reasons God changes us in Christ: we’re charged. 

When we’re changed, it leads us to see that we’re also charged; we are entrusted with a task. But before we further explore what that means, we must recognize that the sequence of these two things – being changed and charged – matters. The order in which they happen matters.

If we jump right to Jesus’ charge before we’re changed, everything is backwards. We then view Jesus’ charge and our ability to carry it out as the prerequisite to God changing how he feels about us. If we do a good job, then he favors us; if we don’t, then he doesn’t. We see his charge to us as an obligation to be fulfilled so that our status before God changes. We cling to Christ’s charge in hopes that our accomplishment of it might cause him to think and feel differently about us. But that’s backwards.

And it is this confusion that turns off many to Christianity – and understandably so! Their perception is that God lays out his demands and prohibitions for us to abide by, favoring only those who follow through with them. Christianity is viewed as a restrictive form of religious oppression or enslavement that only the weak, the disenfranchised, or the brainwashed are sucked into. Then, led blindly by a cult-like commitment, Christians try to satisfy a domineering God in the hope of achieving a better status in the life to come, a hope that is based on how well they adhere to his charge of unquestioning obedience.

So it is instrumental that we understand the proper order: changed first, then charged. Paul stated what initiated that change in verse 15: “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” First, Jesus died, and he died for all – not just for those who made his list. Not just for the obedient. Not just for the religious. Not just for Christians. He died… for all. That death changed our lives so that we live for the one who died for us. And living for the one who died for us means desiring to conduct our lives according to his will. 

What is his will? What has Jesus charged us, his believers to do? “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (v.18-20).

The word Paul uses – reconciliation – isn’t used as much outside of the Bible, so maybe it helps us to think of the word “restore” instead, even if it isn’t an exact synonym. We are familiar with the need for old, uncared for, or broken items or pieces of furniture to be restored, or made like new again.

That restoration (reconciliation) is exactly what we need. God’s creation, including mankind, was perfect right from the beginning, just as it was when he created it by the power of his spoken word. But sin changed that and brought everything, including mankind, into ruin and destruction. Our sin separated us from God, cutting us off from him forever.

But Paul is saying that God changed our eternity by reconciling – restoring – us through Jesus Christ. If it was our sin that separated us from God, and at the cross Jesus rendered full payment for our sin, every last one, then there is no longer any sin remaining to separate us from God. We have been reconciled – restored – into a perfectly lovely relationship with him.

Now, having discovered this lifeline of grace for ourselves, and fully believing it, God charges us to make it known to everyone else, to be, as he calls us, “Christ’s ambassadors.” We have been restored – but so have all people; now we – you and me, those who know it – are called to go out and make it known to those who don’t.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that God would charge us with such a task because anyone in sales knows that the absolute best way to sell a product is through personal testimony or word-of-mouth. A person who has experienced the benefits of a product or service is much more likely to lead someone else to purchase that product or service because they are the proof that it works. An infomercial including the science and the data validating the effectiveness of a product or service might be fascinating, but that alone will not typically generate sales. A humorous commercial might garner some attention about the product or service, but it doesn’t generally drive significant sales, either. But get someone personally talking about and demonstrating all the ways the product or service works for them, and people will buy it. 

You are the proof that Jesus Christ does what he says he will, that he works, that Christianity “works” (to use a term that appeals to our pragmatic culture)!

Others see it in your thoughtfulness expressed to them and your kind words of support. They notice it in how calm you are in stressful, anxious moments. They get wind of it by how quick you are to forgive, how loving you are even toward those unloving toward you. It stands out as you relay the joy and privilege of getting to be a parent raising kids, rather than the complaining and the burdens they hear from other parents.

And, lest we all overlook the signature characteristic of Christianity, they hear genuine apologies and a willingness to say sorry and own up to our mistakes and our sins. We confess to others when we have done wrong or wronged them personally. Who better to serve as ambassadors than those who know first hand the joy of living in reconciliation with God?!? Who better to carry out this important charge than those who have so clearly been changed?!?

Paul is even modeling what it looks like for those who have been changed to then carry out this charge. As an ambassador, He addresses his readers in the same way he is encouraging them to address others: “We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v.20-21).

Paul is not just talking the talk, but walking the walk by demonstrating exactly what he’s calling us to do. He is teaching his hearers about reconciliation and as one who has himself been changed – reconciled – he is carrying out his charge of encouraging the Corinthians to be reconciled. He invites them to believe that what God did for Paul in Christ Jesus, he also did for them (“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ…”).

Changed, Paul carries out his charge. Let us follow suit, always making certain that grace – and not guilt – is what compels us to carry out that charge.

As we carry out this charge, remember the driving force behind it. Read the first five words of verse fourteen again: “For Christ’s love compels us.” We could imagine a lot of other words or phrases in place of “Christ’s love,” that could prompt us. But Paul didn’t write that “guilt” compels us. It isn’t “the hope that we’re good enough for God” that compels us. It isn’t the impossible desire to please everyone else that compels us. It isn’t even that we love God so so so so much that compels us.

Nope. It’s Christ’s love – his love for us – that compels us. He loves you. That’s all I need to hear for me to want to change the world for Christ, just as he has changed me with his love. 

Victory Over Lovelessness

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(1 Corinthians 13:1-13)

You could write this post. Help me out here. It goes something like this. We read this description of love from 1 Corinthians 13 and are moved by it. These are the kinds of poetic verses young couples want to include in their marriage ceremony. These are the kinds of words we want bursting out of the greeting card we give to that special someone. We are drawn to the beautiful depiction of love in these verses.

We are also conflicted. Beautiful as they are, they serve a dual purpose. They do not only show us what ideal love looks like; they expose quite clearly what our love does not look like.

You’ve seen the side-by-side pictures comparing the frame-worthy picturesque Pinterest project right next to the real-life cringe-worthy attempts at those projects. It’s laughable how drastically different the ideal is from the real-life attempt. By comparison, the DIY attempt looks as if a toddler tried it (no offense, toddlers). That’s how we feel about this description of love. It is a breathtakingly beautiful, awe-inspiring ideal. But it also makes our attempts at love look like a disastrous DIY fail. 

Then we return back to these verses again to see the perfect love of Jesus. Thank goodness in his perfect love he forgives our lovelessness. Phew! The end.

Then what? What changes? Eventually, we’ll come across the same section of Scripture again, but what will have changed? Anything? Or have we become so accustomed to the same pattern that we haven’t even bothered to notice how little our love changes from one “love sermon” to the next?

As we consider these words yet again, let’s do so in light of Paul’s reasoning in verse 11. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” While Paul is making the point that our Christian lives on this side of heaven will never measure up to our perfect knowledge and understanding on the other side, his words force us to deal with the question of whether we’re still babes in the faith. Are we children or are we maturing and developing into adult Christians? More specific to these verses from 1 Corinthians, how is that reflected in the way that we love others?

Let’s start with revisiting how instrumental love is to God. Consider where love ranks in God’s eyes, based on what the Holy Spirit led Paul to write in chapters 12 & 13 of 1 Corinthians. The chapter right before this one covers what is an extremely popular topic among Christians: spiritual gifts.

Read through it and you’ll see Paul mention all of these super cool gifts that the Holy Spirit poured out on all believers to serve each other and build up the early church. He refers to stuff like the ability to heal sick people and perform miracles and speak in tongues and prophesy – all kinds of awesome gifts, and all of them important! As Paul wraps up the section encouraging the believers to put their respective gifts to work, he writes something that catches our attention: “But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31).

What? Does Paul mean to say that as amazing as stuff like the ability to heal sick people and perform miracles and speak in tongues and prophesy are, there is something greater??? An even more excellent way??? Something even more worthwhile to pursue???

You might understandably expect that Paul would be talking about faith. After all, it’s one of his favorite themes in so many of his letters in the New Testament of the Bible: righteousness by faith; faith, not works; saved by faith; the gift of faith, etc. Paul covers the topic of faith so much that it would be a relatively safe bet to presume that’s where he was going with this, that surely faith would be the greatest gift, the most excellent way. 

And indeed Paul does mention faith, but not to stress it in the way we might have expected. He writes, “and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (v.2).

Whoa. Is that a typo? Did Paul – the fanboy of faith – really just write that a person who has a mountain-moving faith but is devoid of love is nothing??? Yes, he did. Yikes!

And that’s not all! It isn’t just faith that love leaves in its dust, but hope as well. Check out the last verse of the whole love chapter and see what Paul says. “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (13:13). So love does not merely trump all of those outstanding spiritual gifts, but also tops even faith and hope! Is Paul being clear enough here for us? Love is apparently a big deal – like, the biggest deal of all! 

For that reason, this description of love in these verses ought to trouble us mightily, because if love is such a big deal to God, these verses clearly cry out against us that we’re a long way away from it!

There’s an exercise you can follow that really brings this point home. In verses 4 through the beginning of verse 8, replace the word “love” – or reference to it – with your name. So for me it would read like this: “Aaron is patient, Aaron is kind. Aaron does not envy, Aaron does not boast, Aaron is not proud. Aaron does not dishonor others, Aaron is not self-seeking, Aaron is not easily angered, Aaron keeps no record of wrongs. Aaron does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Aaron always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Aaron never fails.” Now that may have a nice ring to it, but if I actually rejoice with the truth, as the verses state, then the painful truth is that none of those statements is true! Not even close! Not for any one of us!

But that’s not the worst part. We all know our love falls short – that part’s plain as day. And we know that alone is more than enough for God to turn away from us. But it’s worse than that. I’m talking about the true barometer of our lovelessness in 12:31: “But eagerly desire the greater gifts.” It’s one thing to be willing to admit that our love falls short, to walk away confident in our forgiveness, then presume that all is good. 

But are we as willing to admit that we don’t eagerly desire to get better at it? Let’s be upfront and honest with each other: most of us really don’t want to change that much. We don’t mind admitting how loveless we often are, but it’s painful to admit the other reality of how little we desire to get any better at loving others. That might just be the hardest thing of all in the Christian faith. 

We can talk all day long about faith and hope – delightful spiritual topics, and topics that deal primarily with our personal relationship with God. And how convenient for us! After all, no one can really measure how much faith or hope I have in my heart in terms of my relationship with God. Those aren’t visible.

But love… that one can be seen. It can be felt. And so can the lack of it. And that stings us. 

We avoid becoming better at loving others because it involves real sacrifice. It involves inconvenience. It doesn’t just mean talk of putting others first, but actually loving them enough to do it. And we’d simply rather not. It’s much easier for us just to confess our love falls short, thank goodness we’re forgiven, and move on. So can’t we just confess we’re no good at it and be forgiven and call it good?

No. No, we cannot. The forgiven child of God is a changed child of God. We desire to get better at loving others. We take very seriously Paul’s charge in Romans: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (13:8). Loving others isn’t only a debt that we cannot pay off, but a debt that we don’t want to ever pay off.

Do you suppose Paul has any Spirit-inspired opinions on how best to put love into action? He does. Read what Paul writes after chapter 13 and it is quite clear that the highest expression of love is to speak God’s Word. Love your brothers and sisters in Christ by speaking the Word of God to them. Love those outside the church by speaking the Word of God to them. Love expresses itself best through lips that speak of God’s love for us in Christ and through his cross.  

There alone do we see the perfect expression of love. There we come to know what love is (1 John 3:16). There we come to appreciate how deep, how wide, and how high Christ’s love is for us (Ephesians 3:18). There we will come to see that our desire and ability to grow in loving others always flows from a deeper understanding of knowing Jesus’ love for us.

Let’s repeat that exercise from earlier and fill in the only name that works. “Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy, Jesus does not boast, Jesus is not proud. Jesus does not dishonor others, Jesus is not self-seeking, Jesus is not easily angered, Jesus keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Jesus never fails.”

Jesus is all of those things for us, and that is the driving force behind our desire to eagerly pursue great love, a radical love, a Christ-like love. That’s the kind of thing Paul was talking about when he wrote elsewhere, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Jesus’ love for us does not yield stagnant hearts, but servant hearts – hearts that are eager to get better at loving others. Jesus’ love for us begs to be displayed to others in a loveless world. When a loveless world sees how radical Jesus’ love is – radical enough to forgive and transform loveless you and me! – that’s how Jesus’ love changes the world, one soul at a time. 

Loving Hate

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(Luke 6:27-38)

We’re conflicted, aren’t we? A tension exists between two desires that many of us have: we want to fit in, but we also want to stand out. Sociologically speaking, we want to be a part of a group rather than be isolated or lonely or the odd person out. We don’t want to be on the outside looking in. So we have different group dynamics that help to meet that need. It might be our nuclear family. It might be a gaming group or online community. It might be a group that enjoys a shared interest or hobby. We want to fit in.

Yet within that group, there can be a desire to stand out. We don’t want to be just cookie-cutter copies of everyone else. We want to be somewhat different, an individual. We want others to take notice so that we aren’t just lost in the crowd of our particular group. We might want to stand out by being the best. We might have some odd or quirky contribution for which we become known. That’s our thing. It’s what makes us stand out.

For those wanting to stand out, look no further than Jesus’ words today. How do you stand out? Let Jesus tell you again: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 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. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you” (v.27-31). There you have it. There are plenty of ways for you to stand out.

But it’s easier to just fit in with the rest of the world, isn’t it? And for those not interested in standing out, Jesus also laid out how you can easily continue to just fit in with the rest of the world. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 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” (v.32-34). If we summed up these words, it might be to say simply that we fit in with the rest of the world when we are kind to those we feel deserve it. If others are kind to us and treat us well, then we are kind to them and treat them well. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, and we’ll all get along just fine in the world. 

Sounds good in theory, doesn’t it? But look around in the world today and ask how well that appears to be working out. If the criteria upon which we base our decision to be kind to others is whether or not they’re kind to us, then everything already starts to fall apart the very first time someone is unkind. If someone is unkind to me and I fail to show love to him because of it, now what happens when a third party unfamiliar with the situation sees me being unkind to that person? Now they have a reason not to show me love, and so on and so forth, until everything inevitably snowballs into a world devoid of kindness. What ends up happening then is that we aren’t looking for people to love; we’re looking for reasons not to love people. And frankly, we don’t have to look very hard, do we? Just like that, following the “be good only to those who are good to you” principle, we have a very badly broken world. 

And the real underlying problem is this: if I am using others’ treatment of me as the determining factor for whether I will show them love or not, then who is fixing me? If the behavior of others is the only concern guiding my decision to love others or not, then I have blinders on regarding my own behavior. I am not dealing with me. I am by default always saying that any love the world expects to see from me will always and only depend on if the world loves me first. If I get love from the world, then I’ll show love to the world. 

Stop right there and consider a most terrifying thought. What if Jesus had entered into our world determined to lead his life governed by that approach? “If I get love from the world, then I’ll show love to the world. If Jesus had decided to love only those who loved him, no one ever would have experienced Jesus’ love! No one would have been on the healing side of his miraculous touch. The 5,000 would have departed with empty stomachs. There would have been no good news delivered on the hillsides, the seasides, or in the synagogues. There would have been no cross or empty tomb. There would have been none of it had Jesus chosen to show love to the world only if he had received it first, because he never would have received it first. And had that been the case, everyone’s ticket for eternity would have been stamped for the same destination: damnation.

If there was ever going to be any love between God and men, God had to be the one to initiate it, because his enemies – you and me – were not interested. St. John reminds us, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Jesus did not come into the world waiting to receive love before he dished it out; rather, he came into the world to love the loveless, to love everyone who by nature hated him, to love you and me. And Paul describes that love, pointing out how radically different Jesus’ approach was. Jesus didn’t extend love only to those who loved him first. Jesus didn’t base his treatment of others on their treatment of him. Quite the opposite. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus didn’t wait for the world’s love; rather, he loved his enemies first. 

You think these words from Jesus are hard? Tell Jesus something he doesn’t know! Can we really take issue with how challenging Jesus’ call to love enemies really is when he knows from experience exactly what that entails? When you are caught up in how impossible it is to carry out these words of Jesus this morning, stop and reframe them. 

See, when we hear or read these verses from Jesus, we automatically place ourselves in the role of “good guys” having to exercise all of these daunting actions toward the “bad guys.” But these words will take on a whole new meaning for you when you first hear them the way they need to be heard: seeing yourself in the role of the “bad guy,” or enemy, or the one who hates, or the one who curses, or the one who mistreats, slaps, steals. That’s your role and my role! That’s an accurate depiction of how we daily treat Jesus in our rebellious sin. With that understanding in mind, give thought to how you would treat you when acting that way. Would you have as much patience, understanding, compassion, mercy, forgiveness, etc. with you as you expect others to have with you? Absolutely not!

But Jesus did. And that’s what makes Jesus special. Miracles wow. Wise sayings amaze. Even his death and resurrection are astounding. But can anything top that these verses capture perfectly how Jesus chose to deal with us? Now that is astonishing!

And absolutely necessary, if we are to find any hope at all for being able to live out any of these hard sayings of Jesus, if we are to carry out the paradoxical charge to love haters. Jesus acknowledged that it isn’t easy. Easy is loving those who love you. That’s easy. But he rightly points out that anyone can do that, so it makes you no different than the unbelieving world. 

Jesus, though, didn’t save you and set you apart to blend in with the world, but to stand out so that he might use you to draw others in. Stand out to draw others in. And do it by loving others. Everyone.

Do you know why it’s so important that you stand out in the world? It’s because God made you stand out. He saved you. He made you his. He promises you heaven. You stand out, but if you look and act and speak and behave exactly like the rest of the world, then you hide what he’s done for you. How will others ever know what God has done for you if you blend in? Stand out to draw others in. Otherwise they will glance right past you and not even know what they missed. 

Billy Graham liked to tell a story of something that happened to him, early in his ministry. He had just arrived in a small town, having been invited to preach at an evening revival service. Graham had a few letters to mail, so he asked a young boy if he could tell him the way to the post office. The boy gave him directions, he thanked him and turned away — but then, on impulse, he turned back to the boy and said, “If you’ll come to church this evening, you can hear me telling everyone how to get to heaven.” “I don’t think I’ll be there,” said the boy. “You don’t even know the way to the post office.” If people fail to see that Christians don’t know the way to love radically, then why would they think Christianity is the way? Why would they consider Christ if Christ’s followers show the same lovelessness, impatience, self-righteousness, judgment, spite, bitterness, etc. that is the norm for the world? Why would they ever think twice about asking or exploring what is different about you if they don’t notice anything different about you? 

Love others. Love everyone. Even the haters. Instead of throwing all of your energy into lamenting how rough we have it as Christians at the next persecution pity party, discuss how you could show love to those making your life so miserable. Instead of the disgusted eye roll the next time you hear of or interact with someone openly broadcasting their recent decision about their gender or identity, love them by listening to better understand them, remembering that they are in fact a human being. Instead of allowing your own pride to continue standing in the way of improving a strained or non-existent relationship with a friend or family member, swallow your pride and love them by gently and patiently bending over backward to meet them wherever they’re at, again and again, if necessary. The next time you’re struggling to love someone else in the way that person needs loving, ask yourself if Jesus would have withheld his love from you if you were in their shoes. And then immediately give thanks because you know he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Know that it is 100% possible to love your enemies. After all, Jesus loved you, didn’t he? And it changed your eternity. Love your enemies and take what could be the first step in changing their eternity, too.

Faith over Fear: Faith Loves (Sermon)

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The key to deeper friendships isn’t getting better at loving our friends, but rather loving the One who gave them to us. To know and be loved by him – and to love him best in return – enables us to love others rightly. When this happens, deep, rich, meaningful friendships with others will follow.

1 Samuel 20:12-17 was the text for this sermon, preached at Shepherd of the Hills / The Way LC (WELS) on Sunday, May 19, 2019.