What does it look like to love someone unconditionally?
A stranger. Someone who has done you wrong. Someone who you just can’t forgive. The guy who cuts you off as he’s pulling out of McDonald’s.
What does loving someone with the love of Christ our King look like?
These are questions that has been just pounding me lately. I wake up thinking about it, I go about my day thinking about this, and go to bed worrying about this after I neglected to do it all day. Bible verse after Bible verse, and sermon after sermon has been conflicting me now for the past month and I just can’t seem to do anything about it. Or don’t want to do anything about it.
Because you see, once you put yourself out there and start to love unconditionally then things become weird. They become less safe. Things can get uncomfortable.
There is one verse in particular that really hit me hard recently and it’s Hebrews 13:1-2. It says, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Wow. How many times have I had an opportunity to love and help someone and passed it up? How many times was that an angel? If not that then they are still God’s individually loved children.
But I’ve been wrestling with this. I wake up every morning, drink my morning cup of coffee with Hazelnut creamer, sit on my back porch and do my morning devotions as I listen to the sweet sound of birds chirping and feel the soft, cool brush of morning air ruffle my hair. It is at some point during this time that I tell God that today is the day that I will start to love. Truly love. And I ask Him to put people in my path to love on.
That emotional high only lasts so long because as soon as I go about my day, for some reason or another, I forget to love people. I recently listened to a sermon by Todd White where he talked about how the Holy Spirit is so alive in him that he can’t help but want to hug and love everyone. He said he loves waiting in long lines because it allows him extra time to love people and share Jesus with them.
I want to get to that point. But that point is scary because it’s vulnerable. It means getting real and raw with people; getting below the surface level that everyone seems to operate on. I long for this and hope and pray for it but for some reason it escapes me. Every. Single. Day.
Then there are the times where I do manage a little bit of love for a stranger then shy away from sharing Jesus, even when God drops a perfect opportunity in my lap. For example, I was talking with this guy on a bar patio one night and he was asking about the World Race. I told him all about it but somehow neglected to include anything about us being the hands and feet of Jesus and telling him the only real reason I’m doing this trip, which is Jesus. Well, come to find out from a mutual friend later that this guy I was talking to was a Christian and a strong one at that. But I was too scared to share my faith.
Friends, please pray that this fear to love others is broken. Pray that I, and everyone who professes to be a Christian, is bold to share the Gospel and the love of Jesus. How can we change the world if we’re quiet about the very thing that will change the world?
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
