Truth and Dare

Casting Crowns has an excellent song entitled “Love Them Like Jesus.” It encourages us how to comfort others during their trials just as Jesus would do. But do we, the Body of Christ, really understand what it means to “love people like Jesus”?  People who hate us just because we love Him? Or people who lash out at us because they trust we’ll forgive them?  Read 1 Cor. 13:4-8 where Paul says: “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

We do okay with some of it and we do very well with other parts, but then there are places where we stumble and scrape our toes on a rock of truth.  For me, it’s often: “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” We like to say we forgive others; we know it’s our Christian duty. But do we really let go of the ways in which others wrong us or do we secretly hold it in our hearts, reminding ourselves of their past transgressions every time they commit a new one?

Maybe you’ve got forgiveness down pat and you never throw up to someone their past mistakes. How about this one: “Love is not selfish.” The KJV says: “Love does not seek its own.” Somehow that translation resonates with me more. Maybe it’s because saying “seek its own” sounds like the phrase should be followed by the word will or way. That hits closer to home to me to hear those words because they remind me of Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer: “Not My will, but Yours.” It’s hard not to demand our rights, not to insist people treat us a certain way simply because we’re a person created in the image of God. But don’t forget:  Jesus set the example as He “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7).

So today, I dare you to live out the love of 1 Cor. 13. But before you take that dare, you better know the truth.  Loving like Jesus is a difficult thing to ask of us limited creatures, who were formed of dust.  And frankly, it’s risky. If you love like Jesus, you will get hurt, sometimes deeply.  Look where His love got Him…tortured, slandered, nailed to a cross. Now look where His love got us… because of His death and resurrection, we get to spend eternity with Him and the Father in heaven.  So ask yourself, are you willing to swallow your pride, are you willing to let your heart be torn, and are you willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to “love them like Jesus”?