Love is a funny thing isn’t it? We can love our dog, love our children, love our spouse love our car or our job and even love pizza! There are so many aspects of love that it’s difficult to understand sometimes. Love can be convoluted by the broad meaning of the word and it becomes easy to fake love because of it’s very nature. I remember being in love once in high school. The police called it stalking, but I know it was love!
OK – That’s not true, but the sentiment behind it is. How many times have you been “in love”? As teenagers, we seem to fall in and out of love weekly. It is during this time of our lives that we first begin to equate the concept of love as a feeling. We get this feeling when we’re around a certain person. We like how they make us feel, so it must be love. Maybe it’s because of the way they look. Certain sounds or smells can remind you of them. A song on the radio will bring them to mind. It’s love. Or is it? We all know people who used to be in love and now they aren’t. Couples split up every day. How do we know if it’s really love?
Tweet ThisThere is one things that’s common with every aspect of love. Your actions will always show your true feelings when it comes to love. If you love pizza, when faced with the choice to eat pizza or a burger, the pizza will win every time. Unless you love burgers. A mother will show her love for her children by protecting them. Even when she’s not feeling “love” for them she will show love for them. If you don’t believe me, find a child in the grocery store who is misbehaving. Pick them up and try to walk off with them. OK – doing that will probably get you more than just proof that I’m right. You’ll probably find the love that the law has for that child as well. But you get my point.
Paul talks a little about love in his second letter to Timothy. You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. ~ 2 Timothy 3:1-2.
People will love only themselves…. How true is this? I was just talking to someone about this the other day. I experience it many times a day. Can you relate to slow drivers in the left hand lane? They aren’t concerned about holding up traffic. They are thinking about themselves. Or nothing at all. It’s difficult to tell sometimes. I’ve been shopping at a well-known department store while the stocker was stocking the shelf I wanted to purchase something from. Did they move so I could get my item? Not a chance. They are thinking about doing their job, not about me trying to purchase something. I’ve been driving in the parking lot looking for a place to park while someone pushes a cart down the middle of the parking lot. Are they thinking about holding up another person? No. They’re thinking about finding their car and unloading their cart. People think about themselves – not others. I’m sure you can think of a situation I may not have mentioned. In all of these cases, people are showing by their actions that they love themselves more than they love me.
Contrast this with the words of Jesus in John 13:34-35 ~ So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
Love each other. And Jesus said that if we did this, it would show the world that we are his disciples. What would the world look like if we really loved each other? I imagine a world where slow drivers always drove in the right hand lane. At the same speed. But beyond my own personal aversions, I imagine a world where Christians are easily contrasted with the rest of society. Even those of us who attend church regularly have witnessed the lack of love we have for each other. In fact, I am unable to distinguish Christians in the church from non Christians outside of the church by their love for each other. We don’t act any different. In fact, I have often witnessed more love from outsiders than I have from Christians. We may tell others that we love them a little more than non-Christians, but our actions toward each other are usually no different.
I’ve been told how much I am loved by Christians, but they have not often demonstrated that love toward me. More often than not, we demonstrate our love for ourselves. We have our own agenda. We come to church and complain that we haven’t been fed, but we don’t do anything to help feed others. We don’t participate in worship because we don’t like the style of music. We ignore those we don’t know because we’re uncomfortable or because we simply don’t really care. We stay in our own group. We allow guests at our churches to wander around and find things on their own. We don’t give. We don’t do anything to help our communities. Statistically, 80% of us sit in our seats / pews every week and aren’t actively involved in the ministry at all. If we even attend every week any longer. We think mainly of ourselves and not others. Of course, I’m painting all of us with the same brush, but I think as a generality, that’s how we’re known. That’s not how Jesus said we would be known.
What if we really loved each other? What if we gave up our favorite seat to a guest at the church and helped them feel welcome? What if, instead of thinking about what we like, we started asking what others like? What if we helped those in our community ~ raked leaves or mowed the lawns of our neighbors? What if we got involved in the church ~ even if it meant just walking around greeting others, or walking a new family to their child’s classroom? What if we became known as the best employee by our employers and co-workers because we were looking out for them? What if we really loved each other? Wouldn’t that make the rest of our culture take notice?