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How Does the Christian Actively Love?

October 12, 2012 at 11:59 AM 3 comments

This question has been on my mind for some time now and I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around it.  We can all quote Scripture and when we consider a topic like this, most of us have our favorite verses that we immediately go to for reference, solace, or confirmation.

Here’s the problem though, as far as I can tell.  Most people when they think of what it means to be a Christian, they think in terms of a list.  That list comprises things that a person is allowed to do and that same list highlights things that a Christian is not supposed to do.  It’s natural to think in those terms.

Yet, if we stopped there, we would be only partially correct and to be only partially correct is not 100% correct.  So what do we do?

I was reading an article about Kirk Cameron, who has most know, states that he is a Christian.  I’m not necessarily doubting that at all.  I’m simply relating what he has said about himself.

Apparently, while on the set and after he committed his life to Christ, he became rather demanding.  He wanted scripts to be rewritten so that a more accurate morality could be portrayed.  Beyond this, he also gave the cast and crew fits with his constant (seeming) condemnation of their lives, their faults, and their foibles.  Who really knows how true all of this is, however I have watched video interviews with some of the cast he worked with and they attest to the fact that it was difficult to work with him on the set because of his growing religious commitment.  Since I wasn’t there, it boils down to a “he said/they said” type of thing.  At the very least, it was probably somewhat uncomfortable for the rest of the cast and crew to deal with Kirk’s new found Christianity and if he did come across as judgmental, then that would only serve to make it even more uncomfortable at times.

I know that we Christians have a tendency to appear at the very least, off-putting and at the very worst, extremely judgmental.  It happens and it is likely due to the fact that we truly do not understand what it means to love other people.  We do so with reservations too often and I’ll admit that for myself as well.

It is at times so difficult to separate the sin from the sinner that at times, it’s easier to simply condemn the sin and the sinner winds up being condemned at the same time, or we love the sinner and appear to embrace their way of life as well.  For instance, one of the big issues today is homosexuality.  How does a Christian embrace the homosexual while at the same time, rejecting their lifestyle?  That is so difficult at best!

We have a friend who is in a lesbian relationship.  Quite frankly, I really like both of the women.  They are fun and quirky.  One of the best compliments I have ever received is that the one woman (that we have more contact with) has stated to us that she knows we do not agree with her lifestyle but she also knows how much we love her and care about her.  Wow!  Here I had been worrying that I was either being “too hard” or “not hard enough” and the reality was that all I needed to do was love her and her partner without condemnation.  Somehow, she gleaned from us that while we cannot support her lifestyle, we absolutely support her.  Honestly, I’m not sure how that happened.

I look back over my life as a Christian and I can see the times I have been very judgmental.  I was this way toward my sister years ago when she chose to live with a guy and I’m not sure her divorce had been finalized yet.  I was a Pharisee, to be sure.  Over the years, my sister and I fortunately became very close and her commitment to Jesus improved (likely no thanks to my attitude!).

One of the things I’m considering is this question:  do I – as a Christian – have the right to tell the world how to live?  Do I have the authority to tell non-Christians what they should and should not do?  Certainly, if we are talking about someone is at the very least professes to be a Christian, then because of that profession, they come under biblical authority and if they are part of a local church, the leaders of that church have the duty to come alongside that person and help them see their way clear of something in their life that is holding them back.  The problem of course, is that this has been used as a hammer to beat people over the head and the outcome has never been good at all.

As I said at the beginning, I’m really mulling (and praying) my way through this situation.  Ultimately, I want people to know me as a Christian and as someone who cares about them and their eternal welfare.  I want people to know that I love them and accept them as fellow human beings.  Should I even worry about their own tragedy of sin, since I myself am not perfect?

I’m certainly not trying to shirk my duties, but it seems to me that honestly loving people would go a good deal further than leaving with a sense of “you’ve been judged!” attitude.  I often wonder about Jesus and how willingly the small children would come up to Him.  Obviously, there was something about His personality that engendered that reaction.

Moreover, there was often a similar reaction in adults.  Of course, in Jesus’ day, propriety was something that was generally not ignored so it was more difficult for say, a woman, to simply come up to Jesus and start talking to Him.  I’m convinced that this is often why Jesus would begin a conversation, as He did with the woman at the well.  He actually broke convention by speaking to her because she was a Samaritan.  This was a person a “good” Jew would not communicate with unless they had to do so.

Jesus was good about reaching out to people.  He was also obviously very good and embracing them in spite of the sin in their lives.  He seemed to have no problem eating with “sinners” and tax collectors, yet if someone who says he is a Christian does this today, it is likely he would be looked down upon by other Christians.

I mentioned the fact that Christianity is often measured in the “to do” lists associated with it.  We should never do things that are considered bad and only do those things considered to be good.  We make our lists, we check them and we do our best to adhere to them.

In spite of this, we tell the world that Christianity is completely different from every other religion because essentially, being a Christian means being in a relationship with Jesus.  No other religion boasts this.

But, how is it that we live?  Do we Christians live as if we are actually in relationship with Jesus, or are we more focused on our “to do” list?

When I began to date my wife, I did not have a “to do” list.  I simply wanted to be with her all the time.  I wanted to make her happy.  After we married, I wanted to do the same thing and I still want to do that.  I do not equate my marriage to a “to do” list.  That would not only cheapen it, but redraw it completely.

My relationship with my wife is based on love and trust.  That is the focal point from which the relationship lives and breathes.  I don’t have this complex list of things that I should be doing for my wife as well as the things I should be avoiding where my wife is concerned.  I love her and react to her based on that concept.

In the process, I wind up doing things for her because I love her.  Conversely, there are things I also avoid doing for this same reason.  However, I guess the big difference is that I do not approach the relationship thinking of all the things I must do or avoid.  I simply live out the relationship with my wife.  Sometimes, things go well, and at other times, not so well.  But the focal point always remains the same.  It never varies.

As far as my Christianity is concerned, do I truly see myself in a relationship with Jesus, or is my Christianity defined by the rules I keep and the things I avoid?  If I see myself as being in relationship with Christ, then my motivation for doing some things while avoiding others stems from my deep appreciation for what He has done for me.  If, for the most part, my life is governed by a set of rules and regulations, then I am not really in relationship with Christ at all, but merely following a set of rules and regulations.

There once was a rich young ruler.  He had family and wealth.  He had learned what to do and what not to do from an early age.  As far as he could tell, he had spent his life obeying rules, the kind of rules that he thought would give him eternal life.

One day, this rich young ruler stood before Jesus to ask him a question.  The question had to do with what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus talked to him about obeying the rules.  The young man answered that he had kept all the rules since he had been a boy.  The text next tells us that Jesus looked on the man and felt love him (cf. Mark 10:21).  I’m not exactly sure what that love felt like within Christ, but it prompted Him to say what He said next.

The second part of verse 21 tells us, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”  We learn that after he heard these words, the young man walked away greatly saddened, ostensibly because he could not part with his wealth.

Here is an example of someone who literally kept the rules, but it wasn’t good enough.  His heart wasn’t in the right place.  In fact, his heart was with his riches, in spite of the fact that if you had asked him, he would have told you that he loved God with all of his heart.

The Apostle Paul was another person who lived to follow the rules.  He was a pharisee of pharisees and lived it.  He knew the rules, backwards and forwards and obeyed them.  There was never a question about it.  He simply obeyed.

But it is also clear that this same Paul (Saul, before his conversion in Acts 9) did not love.  He could not willingly set aside rules because of a love he had for someone.  He could not ignore the rules.  He lived by them and would have died by them as well.

Jesus lived life by loving others.  It was His entire purpose.  Yes, he fulfilled the law by obeying as well.  However, He fulfilled the law out of love, not duty.  He wanted to fulfill the law because He knew it would give Him the opportunity to truly show how much He loves all people in this world!  So He did not merely obey the law because it was there.  He obeyed the law because it was the means to the end for Him; an end which set the captive free!

I think for the true Christian, it is a very, very difficult road to walk down.  On one hand, we are beset with our own sin and failures that we constantly struggle against.  These remind us of the reason why Jesus came to this earth during His first advent.  He came  to die.  We do not like how our own inner struggles make us feel and we seem to be constantly reminded of our own disobedience and rebellion.

On the other hand, we are here to present a loving God to a world that is in rebellion and on its way to hell.  There seem to be two extremes to this reality for Christians.  One extreme is like that of those in groups like Westboro Baptist Church.  They routinely protest gays and soldiers at their funerals.  They believe that God hates and because of that hatred, is angry all the time.  They believe the only ones who are saved from that hatred are the actual elect.

It is because of this belief that they have some of the most disrespectful signs displayed during their protests.  There is no need for me to point them out here as a simple search of the Internet will provide that information for those who are truly interested.

Is God like this?  Did Jesus act like this while He walked the earth?  While I do understand that God hates sin, His love compelled Him to die for the sinner.  I do not believe that God hates those who are involved in homosexuality, nor does He hate the soldier who dies in one of our wars.  God is not like the god promoted by the Westboro Baptist Church, nor is He like the god preached by the radical Islamist.

The other extreme seems to be those who profess to be Christians who never tell anyone else about Jesus because they believe that this in itself is a form of being judgmental.  At the same time, we have preachers who state that homosexuals go to heaven.  It seems to me that these people are more concerned about being accepted by men, than understanding the truth of God.

It also seems to me that by asking Christians what they think about specific issues, we are putting the cart before the horse, aren’t we?  I asked at the beginning of this article whether or not a Christian has the right to tell those in the world how to live.  Taken a step further, can those who do not have the empowering of the indwelling Holy Spirit even hope to break their addiction to their own personal sin (whatever it happens to be)?  How difficult is it for Christians to break the hold over sin, yet some expect those within the world to stop what is considered to be their aberrant behavior?  That’s a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?

In other words, it seems very natural that the world is going the way it is going because the majority of people are not saved.  Do we as Christians think they are going to be saved if we simply tell them what is wrong with their life, enumerating their sins for them?

Isn’t it better to approach it from another angle?  Instead of telling people that God hates homosexuality and because of it (and other sins), God’s wrath is being poured out onto this nation, blah, blah, blah, shouldn’t the message that Christians share today be the same message that Jesus shared roughly 2,000 years earlier?  Wasn’t that message simply that God loves us in spite of our sins, our faults, and our incompleteness?

I realize that we have to show people that they have fallen short of God’s glory.  That is what creates the need in the first place for people.  But to harp on their specific sins seems pointless to me.  I could be wrong, but it seems like we would fare better with the lost of this world if we would stop truncating the message that focuses on a person’s specific sins and simply point out (by our life as well as our words) that God loves them immensely.

A few years ago, my wife and I participated in a set of teaching lessons on evangelism.  The hosts of the DVD program indicated that “friendship evangelism” did not work, so they were advocating a more direct approach with street witnessing.

At the time, I agreed with them, but I’m not so sure.  Why can’t both aspects work?  I mean, for goodness sakes, God is the One who draws people to Himself anyway.  He has obviously done it using words, miracles, and nothing at all.  He is the One who controls the way a person finally sees and then embraces His truth.  We are merely farmers, planting a seed, watering it, or maybe being there for the harvest.  We have absolutely no control over how someone officially sees the truth.  God simply permits us to be part of the process, somewhere.  All glory goes to Him though, because if we choose not to be part of the process, He will use someone else (or nothing) to bring forth the fruit He desires to see.

I think I have been weighing myself down too much over the years.  I’m wondering if I simply need to let go and let God do what He will do in and through me?  That doesn’t mean I do nothing.  But it certainly may mean that I stop focusing on rules and start focusing on my relationship with Him.  That relationship is supposed to change me for the better, isn’t it?  In the meantime, the effects of that changing relationship should also mean that people will see something in me that lies beyond me and that something will draw them in, hopefully.

As you can tell, I have not found my way through all of this yet.  I’m going to trust God to help me get a really good handle on this so that I will in fact, understand that it is my relationship with Him that counts, not the rules or regulations I follow.  Will you join me in that prayer?  Thank you.

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