Altar Call –
Opelika-Auburn News
Walter
Albritton
March 8, 2015
There is no wiggle room when it comes to love
Radical Islamist
terrorists are beheading innocent Christians. Does God expect Christians to
love these terrorists? Does God love them? The answer to both questions is yes.
God, of course, is a
just God and he will hold everyone, including terrorists, accountable for their
evil deeds. His love does not negate his judgment.
When it comes to
loving our enemies, no matter how vile, God leaves us no wiggle room. Genuine
disciples of Jesus must love others. No matter how severely
others hurt us we must forgive and love our offenders.
The irony is that we
cannot love others simply because we realize we must love them.
What God demands is utterly impossible without God’s help. So the first step in
loving others is to admit we cannot do it on our own.
That is where the
gospel comes in. God loved us first. He sent his Son to die for our sins. By
allowing Jesus to die for our salvation, God showed us how much he loves us.
Then God invites us to confess Jesus as the Savior of the world and invite him
to live in our hearts. Learning how to love as God asks us to love begins with
confessing Jesus as the Son of God.
Think of this as
opening your heart to Jesus. When you repent of your sins and open your heart
to Jesus, God begins to “abide,” or “dwell,” or “live” inside you. Since God is
love, you now have eternal love abiding in your heart. Now, loving others, even
those who have hurt you, becomes possible. God Himself is helping you
love.
Loving others
then is never something you can boast of having done since you cannot do it without
help. Such love is the result of a partnership with God who empowers you to
love as Christ loved.
Nothing in the world
is more beautiful than a person who loves others like Jesus loved people. That
is why we marvel at the self-giving love of a David Livingstone or a Mother
Teresa. We realize that their Christ-like love was possible only because God dwelt
in their hearts.
All of us are tempted
to return evil for evil and retaliate against those who offend us. We can
resist such temptation by remembering that God loved us when we did not deserve
it. When revenge heats up within us, we can say, “Because God loved me in spite
of my sins I can ask him to help me love others despite their sins.”
A woman confided in
me that she hated her father and could not forgive him for abusing her as a
child. Her pain was so great that she did not even want to forgive him. I urged
her to pray for deliverance from her hatred and ask God to help her forgive her
father. Slowly she began to see that her hatred was like a ball and chain binding
her to her wretched past.
The day finally came when,
in tears, she said, “I am willing to forgive him – if God will help me. God
will have to give me love for my father because I have none in my heart for
him.” That was all God was waiting for; He gave her the love she needed as soon
as she asked for it. When she forgave her father, she released herself from the
prison of her own hatred. She was free to live a healthy life and she blossomed
like a flower in spring, her face radiating joy and peace.
The wisest thing we
can do, when hatred is consuming us, is to do what that woman did: ask God to
give us love, his love, for the person for whom we feel no love. Since God is a
generous God, and his supply of love is inexhaustible, he will give us all the love
we need.
God understands when
love is difficult. He knows that hurt can numb our capacity to love. Insults
and cruelty can exhaust our capacity to care, to the point that we are tempted
to give up even trying to love our abusers.
When that happens to
me, the only solution is to fall on my knees and confess that I am lost without
the Christ within. His words, “Without me you can do nothing at all,” vibrate
within my numbness. Then a wonderful thing happens. When I admit I am helpless,
at that very moment God opens the reservoir of heaven and fills my heart with
his love. Then—and only then—am I able to love as Christ loved.
Saint Paul explains
in his Letter to the Romans how God’s love gets into our hearts. We cannot
obtain it by striving for it. We must simply open ourselves to it
for we are “vessels” with the capacity to receive God’s love. When we do, God
does an amazing thing: He “pours his love into our hearts by the
Holy Spirit”! The word “pour” suggests two things: the abundance of God’s love
and his great willingness to share it.
Paul shares in the
fifth chapter of Romans that we are sinners without hope but God sends his Son.
Through the death of Jesus, we may find peace with God. This is justification
by faith. Once reconciled to God we have access to his all-sufficient grace. We
can “stand” in it! Indeed, grace is the only solid ground upon which to stand.
All other ground is “sinking sand.”
God’s grace allows us
to rejoice even in our sufferings. Though we suffer, God gives us the
undeserved gift of hope. We see through the pain the glory that God will
eventually bring. This, indeed, is hope, the inner certainty that there is
meaning in suffering because God is in control.
It seems fitting to
let the original Methodist, John Wesley, offer this final word:
“When the love of God
has been poured into the heart of the born again person, the necessary fruit of
that love is the love of our neighbor. This means every soul whom God has made,
including our enemies. We cannot exclude those who are now despitefully using
and persecuting us, for the love of God is a love by which we love everyone as
we love ourselves.
“Our Lord has
expressed it strongly, teaching us to love one another, even as He has loved
us; and while we were yet sinners, He loved us and laid down His life for us.
Accordingly, this commandment is written in the hearts of all those that love
God, ‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’”
Amen! + +
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