Why the world can’t get love right.

Our world is consumed with the idea of love.

We’ve made flags to try and parade around the idea that we’ve mastered the art of loving because we’ve embraced every type of individual.

In the church, we’re often found trying to convince the world that all they will receive when they enter our doors is the love that they so crave.

We want to be loving people.

We want the world to see that we love people.

We are willing to parade, we may try to wave flags.

And as a follower of Christ, we will try to hide away every part of us that the world may not see as loving.

But the reality is, that people are very hard to love.
And that is why you’ll sometimes see someone with flag in hand while yelling hate at those who don’t like the flag.

And that is why you’ll see a born-again believer go ahead and turn their back on a friend when the road they walk turns rocky and the friendship is put on trial.

We want to love others, but we are very good at hurting others.

But this is also why the whole world seems to take pause and lean in close when a human being goes and extends a supernatural kind of love to a person while they are actively causing them pain.

Because that is something only a perfect God can do.

So, when we love in the midst of hurt, we best show the world what real love is and that we have found the supernatural source.

When we don’t walk away in the hard things,
when we don’t quit when it’s not returned,

when we push through when it’s not deserved.

A love that doesn’t relent, and doesn’t compromise.
A love that stands steady and firm.

Our world doesn’t know what to do with a love like this because it is other-worldly. Because in order to love like this, one must come to a total and complete sacrifice of their own will.

We must reach the end of ourselves to really reach into others’ lives and love them like Christ.

We have to release our hold on our rights, our pride, and our reputation even, in order to love another soul well enough to demonstrate to them the real love of a very real God.

When we love others by the power of the Holy Spirit, putting aside any attempts of our own efforts, we radically spill out the light of Christ and leave the world left to wonder.
We call the bluff of every other type of love that is being paraded and waved through this world.

We change the world when we stay when others are undeserving,
and when we serve in the face of insult,
and when we keep on loving even on the hardest of roads.

There is no context for this apart from Christ, and therefore, it’s the surest way to bring someone face to face with their Maker, who loved them first.

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“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?  Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”

1 John 3:16-18