When I first came to Christ many years ago, the idea of
Christian love was massively confusing. The commands to “love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you” and “do good to those who hate you” made no
sense at all (Matt 5:44, Lk 6:27). I practiced just the opposite for twenty
plus years and, honestly, this sounded like really dangerous and even bad
advice. I remember the first chance I
had to put faith into action regarding forgiveness and how beautifully strange it
felt. On the one hand, I was giving up my right to retaliate and win. On the
other, I was gaining victory by choosing to love, relying on Christ to win for
me. It was about as close to walking on water as I could imagine.
Fast forward thirty years and I find myself in all kinds of
situations that continue to challenge this call to love and forgiveness,
especially when I receive mixed messages. Trying to understand what a person
actually means and what his or her intentions are can be incredibly confusing. And
it is tempting to focus on discernment, rather than love, so that I can guard
my heart from further pain. I reason that if I can learn to discern well
enough, I can avoid painful relationships altogether. But, this is not the call of Christ – to measure out love
and forgiveness only to those I consider deserving or trustworthy while
protecting myself from the others. His call is to love them regardless -- when
they say what they mean and mean what they say, and when they do the exact
opposite. Why? Because that’s what he did.
The disciples said they loved Jesus, but they slept when he
was preparing to die and continued sleeping in spite of his pleading that they pray. They denied him when faced with the choice of comfort or
following him, and they tried to use him for position and power. They even
tried to trick him into giving them more food. But none of this deterred Christ
from showing them love. He could have easily left the boat rides, the mountainsides,
the dusty roads, the Garden and the Cross with a well-documented and justified declaration
that these people were not trustworthy and did not deserve His love. His case
would have been clear cut, even among his family members, who refused to trust
and follow him. Yet we see him blessing his enemies, refusing to retaliate, feeding those who were needy but did not see their need for him, healing many who were not thankful and leading those who were struggling to accept His divine position as their very creator.
Jesus loved profoundly, extravagantly, sacrificially and wisely but not blindly. He knew the heart of man was deceptive. While
he was committed to lavishly giving love, he never put his hope or trust in the
return of it. His confidence was that the Father alone could give the faithful
love that never fails, and only he as the God man could perfectly live it out
by the Spirit’s power. His motivation to love those completely incapable of returning
the same kind of love was never based on need or desire but on a heart that was
already perfectly satisfied with by his Father’s love.
Unlike Christ, we often enter relationships with certain expectations
that others will love us in return -- that they’ll value us and treat us with
the dignity and worth Christ has assigned to us as his image bearers. But we know
this does not always happen. Instead, we often leave relationships battled and somewhat
scarred. Those we trust sometimes betray us. The ones we sacrifice for
sometimes show us the least grace. Those we defend at times attack us. Instead
of trying to discern who is going to love us well, we can instead
decide to love all those Jesus places in our lives with his love, refusing to
be discouraged when they do not return the same, or even when they give us evil
for the good we have offered them.
Our ability and power to show this kind of love can only come from Christ. He not only set the perfect example to show us the way forward, but he has etched his truth on believers' hearts by the Word and the Spirit. We can look to him, the great author of our faith, and see
that he did all this not for the immediate gratification of getting his needs
met but for the joy set before him (Heb 12:2). He was able to scorn the shame
of rejection, press past the broken promises and insults, and refuse to be discouraged by unbelief and the slander, not because he believed these
responses would change but because he was on a divine mission to pour out the
most downright, beautiful love mankind would ever know. His eyes were fixed on
the prize of the mysterious cross, where sin and death were defeated by
resurrection power and shame was eclipsed by honor and glory unimaginable.
Christlike love relinquishes our right to be treated fairly, our demand to see immediate justice and our often obsessive longing to be loved in return. In exchange, we receive the promise that he is with us and will comfort us when our hearts are broken, that he will love us perfectly in the way we long for and that he will give us the grace, strength and wisdom we need to keep loving and giving, over and over and over again, until all anger and hurt and even death comes to a complete end. At that instant, all brokenness and pain from imperfect love will cease, and we’ll experience the incomprehensible fullness of the perfect love of our Father, forever (Eph 3:20).
