Iron Love

I love you.

I love my fiance.

I love my family.

I love the guy on the corner holding up the sign that tells me that "Anything helps, God bless."

Or at least I'm trying.

Now what does this really mean...?

Here's the deal: love is not primarily an emotion. Being "in love" is a wonderful experience, and I wish it upon everyone, but it is not the essence of love. The essence of love is closer to commitment. It is more a part of the world of actions rather than emotions. Loving someone is a verb that you do, not a warm feeling that you get when you think about them (though that doesn't mean that that doesn't happen). 

Specifically, I think the easiest way to think about what it means to love someone, the clearest way to obey Jesus' command to feed his sheep is this:

Remember that they are human. 


Whoa, that's it? Don't we do that anyway?

Unfortunately, we do not. From extreme examples like genocide to more common occurrences like road rage, our daily news cycles are filled with people treating other people like things rather than people. Normal people have a hard time killing someone when they know their life story, know the faces of their children, have talked with their parents. That's why soldiers are trained not to think about those things in the line of duty, even to the point of using language that refers to enemies as objects rather than people.

'Those who say, "I love God," 
and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; 

for those who do not love a brother 
or sister whom they have seen, 

cannot love God whom they have not seen.'


1 John 4:20

Those who follow Christ are called to love others: not because this will earn them God's acceptance, but because he has already loved and accepted us. We love others because this is his heart, and, as God's children, we want to be like our Father in heaven. 

This means we are called to remember that everyone we meet is a human being: someone created by God, someone that God loves even more than they love themselves, someone with a story that has or perhaps needs God written all over it. 

This is not an easy calling. We live in a world where it's so much easier to think about numbers rather than individual people: 15 million Americans unemployed, 15 million children around the world dying of hunger each year, 200,000 killed by the earthquake in Haiti. Our brains just can't comprehend this many human lives at once, so we shut that part down and stop thinking. 

But we can't stop there. We've got to remember each person's humanity if we're going to love, if we're going to be obedient to Christ. We can't stop at numbers. 

So let me give you one thing you can do today to follow this call: Treat one person you meet today just as you hope someone would treat one of your loved ones. Ask about their day. Have their best interests in mind. Offer help if they look like they can use it. Give them respect, no matter what they look like. Listen to their stories. 

And let me give you a promise in return: as you do this, you open yourself to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, Christ's promised gift to us. And there's no telling what amazing thing will happen next when the Holy Spirit gets involved. 

oh the humanity

We've been talking a lot about love these days at United Life: God's love for us, what it means to love others as ourselves, etc. The thing about this conversation is, however, that it is so easy for most of us to use a word like love. I mean, who writes a Mother's Day card without signing at the end, "I love you"? Or how easy is it for us to say we loved this movie or loved that restaurant? 

Perhaps the lone exception to this ease of use is the first time you say those words to your girlfriend or boyfriend. 

Actually, let's stay with that thought for a second. What is it that makes that first "I love you" such a big deal between two people in love? I think it has something to do with what's at stake. When you talk about loving a restaurant, there's not that much investment on your part. When you tell someone you deeply care about that you love them, however, you put yourself at risk. What if they don't feel the same way towards you? What if you can't live up to your words? What if you disappoint one another? All of sudden, with three short words the game changes and you open yourself up to potentially great happiness as well as great suffering.  

Did you know that the word "passion" comes from a Latin word meaning "to suffer" or "to endure"?

I think many churches and Sunday Schools make the mistake of Disney-fying God's love. In an attempt to make it accessible, I think we fail to describe his love with the depth it deserves. The Scriptural meaning of love, however, is a high stakes kind of love. When we talk about God's love for us, we need to talk about a kind of love that is willing to suffer and even die for the sake of another. We need to talk about the Cross.

Did you know God's love for you was like this? 

I don't ask this to put you on a guilt trip. God has no need to motivate us through shame. I ask this in order to remind you of the truth: you are deeply, passionately loved by a God who will smash through mountains for you, who caused the sun to shine for you, who laid his own life down for you. 

Now go and do likewise for others. 

'He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you."

Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep."' 

- John 21:17