Nowadays “Love Wins” has become the mega-trending hashtag, and there are countless movements in this world fighting for “love” and “peace” for decades.
“Only one thing can unite us all: Love”, the world proclaim.
This evidently shows that love is considered as something significant for this world, not only to Christians.
As human being, what is natural for us is to criticize those who are “different” than us. The larger the gap is, the harder to accept, appreciate, and value the differences.
It is very easy for us to say we love something we like (“Oh I really love your shoes!”, “Love that coffee!”), but it’d feel unreasonable for us to refer the word “love” to something we don’t (how could we say cheerfully “I really love how that annoying and rude lady treats me”).
When Jesus said we are no different than this world when we love only those who love us (those who are nice to us) and to “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:43-48), this command really outstretches our human capacity and is against our intuitive.
I personally have been “forced” from time to time to love not only those whom I do not ‘like’, but particularly also those who have constantly hurt me by lies and deceptions. I was raised in a family background where infidelity is apparent, and honesty is undervalued. It is a long journey to overcome bitterness at all possible levels since I was a young adult. By God’s grace alone His love continues to overcome and now I no longer see myself as a ‘victim’. Yet the hard battle is still ongoing, and forgiveness needs to be released day by day.
Needless to say, I cannot love to this extent if it depends on my own will.
We all need divine power to be able to love like Jesus loves — that deep, radical, extravagant, unconditional love. Only by the power of His Spirit in us we can love and obey like Jesus did at the cross and died for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).
The closer we get to God, the more clearly we will see ourselves as we really are (undeserving, “all human has sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23). As long as we compare ourselves to others, we can always find someone who makes us feel good about how well we are doing. But when we step into God’s holiness, what once have seemed clean suddenly looks tarnished. How we do really need God’s grace so we are enabled to see this truth!
Yes it hurts us (our flesh) when we choose to love despite of not feeling like it. But lay our eyes once again at the cross, where Jesus has suffered all the pains on behalf of us.
The physical, emotional, and the most excruciating pain of all: being separated with the presence of God the Father at the final hours (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46). And all of these to endure our sins, not His.
Because Jesus has paid a greater debt of mine at the cross with His own life — willingly and freely, I now have the power to release the much lesser amount of debt from others (please read beautiful parable of the unforgiving debtor in Matthew 18:21-35).
May the power of the Gospel not only save, but also transform our life. Pray that His Spirit enable us to love when it is difficult to do so. Let His love wins over our self-centered and shallow kind of love — and lead us to a deeper, extravagant act in loving others.
God bless you all.
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