Love comes near
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| At Crossroads Cafe with Jean and Lauren |
Jesus really was the best example of love that we can find. Looking at His life will help us understand what love is supposed to look like. He was perfect, He lived in the perfect environment, surrounded by angels to carry out His desires, and in fellowship with the Father. He needed nothing. He could have just forgotten humanity and let us continue until we destroyed ourselves. He had no need to intervene in our affairs. His world was already perfect and He already had perfect fellowship. The only explanation for His incarnation is that He loved us.
Jesus did not come to earth just to preach a message and teach us a better way to live and treat one another. Many religious leaders would be happy to do just that but Jesus came with different motives. He came to identify with us, to get to know us on the level that we lived. He wanted to not just look at the suffering of living in a fallen world but to also experience it first hand. He learned what it was like to be a totally dependent baby, to teeth, probably to suffer normal illnesses, and to be tempted. He had friends and felt the camaraderie of their company. He also felt the devastation of betrayal. He felt the grief of loss. He knew rejection firsthand and personally. He learned what it takes for us to navigate life in the fallen world. Because of that, He understands us. He has empathy for us, in this situation. He came to live for us and to fully understand us, before His time to die for us.
Heb 4:15-16 ESV - For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Because He can so completely identify with us, we do not have to fear sharing our lives with Him. In the verse leading into the two above it tells us that we are going to be exposed, naked, judged in front of Him but also that He is our high priest, pleading our case for us. He is not ashamed to identify Himself with us regardless of how we have gotten to the point that we are today. He is standing with us. If we have turned to Him, He is interceding with the Father on our behalf. If we have not turned to Him, He is standing facing us, calling us to come home to His love. He has promised to never leave us. Even though He ascended into Heaven, His Holy Spirit has been here with us and among us to lead us. Jesus walked with the people and was involved in their world and their lives 2,000 years ago. He is still doing the same today. He is Immanuel, God with us. He does not run from our troubles but stands with us while we face them. He also rejoices in our victories. He is here.
Rom 12:9-21 ESV - Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
I could write pages about these verses. There is so much in them that we easily overlook yet we need to learn to live from. It is a struggle that I still face regularly. I want to love people this way but when I am in the middle of my day and someone disrupts or I am feeling a little insecure and someone disrespects me, the truths here become a little harder to live out. I react from my frustrations and insecurities rather than the love Jesus has placed inside of me. We need to continually look to the life and example of Jesus and remind ourselves that He loves the way He is calling us to love here. We are His disruption. Our choices have frequently shown Him disrespect. While we can easily become unhinged at the faults and shortcomings of another, He is looking at us and trying to show us the areas that He has shown mercy and stood by us in love. We are all in the process of learning the true depth of His love for us so that we can learn to live it out toward others. We must let His Holy Spirit fill us with love when we see that we are coming up short.
Today, I am praying that God would change my heart and mind toward people, especially the ones that I struggle to show love or even kindness toward. I am praying that He fills me with a heart of genuine love for them. I know that this requires me to have an open heart and to allow Him to go into the areas where I am insecure, where I hold things against myself. It requires me to allow His love to fully fill me because I can only give from the overflow of what I receive. I do not want to have a phony concern for people that they can feel from a mile off. I want to love genuinely. I want to have the strength of character that can stand by a person when they are in the middle of a difficult season and just love them, not give unsolicited answers or false hopes but just be there to offer them whatever they need. I want to love them enough to speak the words of Jesus to them, in the way He desires them to be spoken so that He can bring hope and life or correction, leading to life. I want to love them when they are angry and trying to drive me away. I want to stand by them while they are doing everything possible to show me why they should not be loved.
I know that I am in a process of learning to love. I have failed many people in my desire to look like Jesus and love like Him. I am learning to grow in this area and want to look like Jesus to people. The people I love most are the ones that I look like Jesus the least to at times. I can serve them and do things for them but they are also the easiest to be frustrated by. I think this is part of our sanctification process. Jesus is teaching us to get close and still love. He is teaching us to love others even when we do not understand how they think or why they do something they do. He is teaching me not to try and wrest control of their lives from them but to still walk with them and stand by them. My goal is to look like Him. Today, I often do not but I think this is one goal worth fighting for. The enemy does not want us to love like Jesus. He does not want us to receive the love of Jesus until it pours out of us to everyone we encounter. I want to see the enemy lose this battle in my life. How about you?
Phl 3:8-11, 13-14 ESV - Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-- that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ... Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
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