The question I asked myself this year was how I was going to love them. It is easy to identify with the victims of such suffering and to come along them, loving supporting them. It is easy to love those people who love you and make you feel good. For the most part love in our cultures has become a self serving feeling, where as long as it is easy and makes you feel good than that is all that matters. But if you are not happy, warm and fuzzy then bail out and head for greener pastures.
How do we get past love the “feeling” to love like God loves? You see God gave us free will, whether or not we want to choose to except him and love him. Many violate the free will and use it to harm others and themselves and as a result love is confused, love is tainted and true love does not prevail. It was not God’s intent to have sin and suffering come upon us. We did that all on our own. It is however his intent to love us enough to save us from our sins and ourselves.
Jesus Christ went from village to village, people group to people group and told them to love each other, and not harm one another. He told people to turn from selfishness. His message was love, and yet he offended the masses. He came with compassion and he got rebuked and jeered. People were not ready to hear that self serving, “it is all about me” lifestyles were wrong. And he was crucified because of it. In his final breath, his last prayer to his father was, “forgive them father for they know not what they do.”
The wages of sin are death. It would have been our death, but God through his love paid that wage for us. And though His creation reject Him and use the gift of life he gave them to harm each other and themselves, he loves them and does not want their sins to continue to keep us from His presence. So he made a way. God said, “I will take that task by sending my son, and he will die for my people, being the offering for sin one final time and paying the wages so that my people and I can be united in love. And when I come they will mock me, beat me and reject me, and through it all I will love them.” John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that who so ever belieth in Him shall not perish but have ever lasting life.
The question of will I love them, was not for the people who suffered. That is an easy one. It was for the ones that caused the pain. One of my first blogs I wrote about this and said I would love them. In the bush of Mozambique after a night of outreach and pouring out love and prayers to people, that “love” I proclaimed was tested. I was caught up in a group of locals who were pushing their way onto our truck and while I was being lifted into the truck bed, I was being pulled out. They were hitting me and elbowing me in the face. My leg was being twisted and I heard my knee snap. The pain was horrible. I was scared, I was angry and I felt like I had to fight my way into that truck. Finally I was free and inside and I wept and wept the whole way back to my tent.
Benny started the prayer for us like this, “I pray we lay it down.” It was then that I saw clearly Jesus walking with his cross recognizing in the crowd people he once counted as friends, who he feed on the mountains, who’s eyes he had healed, who’s children he had raised from the dead suddenly joining in the taunting and jeering. His own disciple and dearly loved friend denied he knew him three times. My God was nailed to a cross all for loves sake and I was struggling with loving the people at the back of a truck. Love is not love until love is tested and you can say that you love someone even when they do not love you. I had given up expectations, I had given up rights, but this was the one big thing God still needed to break my heart for. I continued to weep through the night as he showed me vision after vision of men and women through the years that came to serve and love people, by feeding them, clothing them, praying healing for them. They sometimes were attacked, beaten and even killed. I thought to myself, what right do I have to be angry and mad if Jesus said “forgive them?” My love was tested, and I am glad it was. I wasn’t called to a life of comfort, where I love only if it makes me feel good to do so. I was called to selflessness. No greater love then this that a man lay down his life for a friend. So Jesus, if you want it, you have it, I lay my life down for you.
(‘2009-10-16 00:00:00’, 65728, ‘402E66B0EC9940FBA95FE067A744F5’, ‘melissabetz.theworldrace.org’, ‘one-more-lesson-learned’, ‘One more lesson learned’, ‘General Articles’, ‘
The question I asked myself this year was how I was going to love them. It is easy to identify with the victims of such suffering and to come along them, loving supporting them. It is easy to love those people who love you and make you feel good. For the most part love in our cultures has become a self serving feeling, where as long as it is easy and makes you feel good than that is all that matters. But if you are not happy, warm and fuzzy then bail out and head for greener pastures.
How do we get past love the “feeling” to love like God loves? You see God gave us free will, whether or not we want to choose to except him and love him. Many violate the free will and use it to harm others and themselves and as a result love is confused, love is tainted and true love does not prevail. It was not God’s intent to have sin and suffering come upon us. We did that all on our own. It is however his intent to love us enough to save us from our sins and ourselves.
Jesus Christ went from village to village, people group to people group and told them to love each other, and not harm one another. He told people to turn from selfishness. His message was love, and yet he offended the masses. He came with compassion and he got rebuked and jeered. People were not ready to hear that self serving, “it is all about me” lifestyles were wrong. And he was crucified because of it. In his final breath, his last prayer to his father was, “forgive them father for they know not what they do.”
The wages of sin are death. It would have been our death, but God through his love paid that wage for us. And though His creation reject Him and use the gift of life he gave them to harm each other and themselves, he loves them and does not want their sins to continue to keep us from His presence. So he made a way. God said, “I will take that task by sending my son, and he will die for my people, being the offering for sin one final time and paying the wages so that my people and I can be united in love. And when I come they will mock me, beat me and reject me, and through it all I will love them.” John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that who so ever belieth in Him shall not perish but have ever lasting life.
The question of will I love them, was not for the people who suffered. That is an easy one. It was for the ones that caused the pain. One of my first blogs I wrote about this and said I would love them. In the bush of Mozambique after a night of outreach and pouring out love and prayers to people, that “love” I proclaimed was tested. I was caught up in a group of locals who were pushing their way onto our truck and while I was being lifted into the truck bed, I was being pulled out. They were hitting me and elbowing me in the face. My leg was being twisted and I heard my knee snap. The pain was horrible. I was scared, I was angry and I felt like I had to fight my way into that truck. Finally I was free and inside and I wept and wept the whole way back to my tent.
Benny started the prayer for us like this, “I pray we lay it down.” It was then that I saw clearly Jesus walking with his cross recognizing in the crowd people he once counted as friends, who he feed on the mountains, who’s eyes he had healed, who’s children he had raised from the dead suddenly joining in the taunting and jeering. His own disciple and dearly loved friend denied he knew him three times. My God was nailed to a cross all for loves sake and I was struggling with loving the people at the back of a truck. Love is not love until love is tested and you can say that you love someone even when they do not love you. I had given up expectations, I had given up rights, but this was the one big thing God still needed to break my heart for. I continued to weep through the night as he showed me vision after vision of men and women through the years that came to serve and love people, by feeding them, clothing them, praying healing for them. They sometimes were attacked, beaten and even killed. I thought to myself, what right do I have to be angry and mad if Jesus said “forgive them?” My love was tested, and I am glad it was. I wasn’t called to a life of comfort, where I love only if it makes me feel good to do so. I was called to selflessness. No greater love then this that a man lay down his life for a friend. So Jesus, if you want it, you have it, I lay my life down for you.