Jesus had the disciplines of prayer, fasting, thankfulness, sacrifice, giving, submission, service, stewardship, perseverance, self-control, worship, and love.
We had so much fun looking at the disciplines that Jesus had in his life. This week we look at the discipline of love.
Before we talk about what we know about love, I would like to take a different approach this week. First, we know the scriptures that say: love each other, love your enemies, the greatest is love, and God loved the world. But what about the things that love does?
Today, we are faced with things we never dreamed we would be faced with. Young people struggle with their identity, and the woke culture is stripping our voices from us, and people are out of control. I was shocked when I saw some of the videos on how women acted about their abortion rights. It was shocking to see women demanding their right to kill innocent babies. Teachers demand the privilege of teaching young, innocent children about perverted sex practices. Sin is so open and in your face. You see the emptiness in the eyes of these individuals thinking that temporary pleasure will satisfy the eternal desire for peace that God has put in their hearts.
So how do we love these people? For years the Church shunned these people and stayed between the four walls of the building. Did we really think that they would come to us? Isn’t there a reason Jesus told us to go?
Love does not ignore a need, and love certainly does not stay passive in the face of disaster. Love understands the destruction of sin. Love cares enough to take the chance of being rejected and misunderstood so that it can stop you from taking the path you are on. Love cares more about your freedom than it cares about the reputation of not exposing your sin to others. Love does not keep account of the times you rejected the call to change and keeps on hoping that you will turn and find freedom. Love always stays present and never gives up.
On the contrary, love is expressed, understood, and solidified in the very action it takes. This same action that love takes must also show that love is caring, redemptive, and has a better solution than what the individual currently seeks. For love to stay quiet would mean it compromised its own character. Love can never accept anything that is a compromise of the true sacrifice love has made.
How do we love the sinners? The same way Jesus did.
Studying scripture, I find Jesus out and about with the sinners. He loves on them, speaks truth to them, and challenges them to repent and receive the Kingdom of God. Love does not mean we compromise our message. Jesus never did. The very truth we have is what will set them free. That truth must be spoken from a place of no condemnation or judgment. When they brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus, he told her: neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. Can we do the same?
A friend in ministry wrote this, and it is worth reading because I believe it brings balance. Dr Don Lynch had a great way of speaking the truth.
Beware the limited definition of redemption and Atonement that covers what should be cleansed, ignores what should be revealed, and excuses what should be removed. Atonement is reconciliation, but the basis of this reconciliation isn’t Divine blindness but Redemptive light. If we walk in that noonday Sun of revealing, we have true koinonia with Father, and the Blood of His Son cleanses us from all sin.
Beware the idea that the sin remains fully functional, but Father is an Expert at ignoring what is destroying us and our destinies.
Jesus has no sympathy for anything that is standing between us and the fullness of our created destiny and fulfillment of our kingdom calling. He did what was necessary for Atonement so we could be everything we were created to be and do everything we are called to do.
Beware of the concept of redemption that carries the same limitations as the old covenant: Animal blood cannot cleanse, and continual applications are needed. Beware of the concept of “grace” that appears to say, “I’m a big mess, but God loves me anyway. He sees me with rose-colored glasses.”
No. God sees who and what you are perfectly, and the passion He has for you is based upon who you were in His purpose before you were created. That passion is why He gave His Son, and the work of the Cross isn’t about a bandaid or cover-up.
Love is about Redemption. Redemption is about transformation.
I have to close with the passage of scripture where Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and equal to this: LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF – Matt 22:37-39.
