Love. This is a subject I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. Not of the romantic sort; not of the violins, hearts, and flowers variety. No. The kind that is supposed to make the world go around. Jesus talked about it often. He told us to love one another as He loves us. He said to love your neighbor as yourself. He admonished us to love God with everything we are and everything we have. There have been songs written about his kind of love, as well. One of my personal favorites is "Put a Little Love in Your Heart." Even the late John Lennon said: "All you need is love."
And yet...love is at an all time low. Those of us who are supposed to know Jesus, supposed to know the Bible and it's teachings are using it as a weapon to bludgeon "sinners" into living the way we think they should live. That is not what Jesus taught; not in word nor in deed. Jesus spoke of love and His actions confirmed it. I wonder about the people who call themselves Christians and then march and picket events they deem "wicked". They call for the blood of the "offenders" much the same way as the Roman's called for the blood of the Christians a few centuries ago. No wonder people don't want anything to do with Christianity. Who wants to be around so much hate and prejudice?
As I said, I have been mulling this over for a while now and I have come to a conclusion. As Christians, it is not our job to be the moral compass of the world. It is our job to love unconditionally. It is not our job to judge anyone; that is God's job. Matthew 7:1-3 (Amplified) says it all when it comes to juding others: Do not judge and criticize and condemn others so that you may not be judge and criticized and condemned yourselves. For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you [use to] deal out to others, it will be dealt out again to you. Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that is in your brother's eye but do not become aware of and consider the beam of timber that is in your own eye?
The Bible also tells us that God sees differently than we do (1 Samuel 16:7). He sees inside to who we really and truly are in our deepest self. That is what He judges us on. It is so easy to look at someone and make assumptions as to who and what they are; but we don't know. We have not lived in that person's skin. I have to keep reminding myself that the cashier at the grocery store has a life outside of his/her job. Maybe the reason they messed up and charged me twice is because they are worried about a sick child, spouse, or parent. Maybe their marriage is disintergrating and they don't know what to do to save it. Maybe they have a child that is raging out of control and feel powerless to stop them. All of us are living with things good and bad all the time. To judge someone's actions or appearance without knowing their circumstances is foolish at best and destructive at worst. We destroy a little bit of our souls each time we try to build ourselves up by smugly saying, "Well, at least I don't (you fill in the blank) like he/she does."
I think one of the reasons we have such a hard time loving others as ourselves is because we don't like, much less love, ourselves very much. And, in all fairness, as Christians we are taught that loving oneself is egotistical and we should be humble at all costs. (Don't get me started. That is a blog for another day.) So...how do love ourselves without ego, thereby enabling us to love others without judgement? I can't answer for anyone but me. Self forgiveness. We are taught to forgive others and to ask for forgiveness, but not how to forgive ourselves. (Again, a blog for another day.) This is not an easy thing to do. Especially when the enemy likes to throw it in our faces when we least expect it (and almost always when we are feeling our most self-critical). We must turn to the Bible once more, for there are a multitude of texts that tell us of God's forgiveness. One of them is found in 1 John 1:9: If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just (true to His own nature and promises) to forgive our sins [dismiss our lawlessness] and [continuously] cleanse us from all unrighteousness [everything not in conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action]. And yet, when the enemy reminds me of my past transgressions, I can feel my face grow hot with shame and I am dizzy with remorse. I have to remind myself it's in the past. It has been forgiven and I am a new person. I am redeemed.
Once we (by the grace of God) accomplish loving ourselves, the question remains: How do I love those that aren't easy to love? Some people are really hard to love no matter what, arent' they? They might be cranky and cantakerous all the time. They might be so negative that not only is the glass half full, when they left it to get water to fill it up, someone drank what was in there leaving the glass empty. Maybe they aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer. The fact remains, they are children of God just like me. God loves them and sent His Son to die for them just the same as He did for me. This is the thought I am working to keep foremost in my mind when dealing with other people (especially the ones that irritate me to no end). John 3:16 (Amplified) speaks volumes, if only we will listen and hear:
For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
I like the way the Amplified Bible spells it out. My only disappointment is that it doesn't give a more detailed description of the world. By world, I'm pretty sure God meant not only me and those that believe as I do, but all who have ever drawn a breath: good and bad; innocent and malevolent; lovable and unlovable. And if that isn't proof enough of God's love for us (love that we are supposed to be a reflection of), consider this: God and Jesus had a back-up plan in place before the world was created. In the event that Adam and Eve fell from grace, Jesus would sacrifice Himself to give us forgiveness and life.
When Jesus walked this earth, He did not cater to those who were already on the spiritual path. He catered to the lost, confused, sick, disenfranchised, and (yes) unlovable. His last words before dying were: "Father, forgive them; they don't know what they are doing."
So before we judge that person who has just come out of the closet or gossip behind our trampy-looking coworkers back; before we condemn the atheist or the wiccan, remember that God loves them and died for them, too. And if God can love them, with His help and grace, so can we.
