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.