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Christian Love…Broken

Paper with 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
"Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Cor 13:4-7 (NASB)
The entirety of 1 Corinthians is about love, using several angles to fully define what Christian love is supposed to look like. It not only defines attributes of love (what love looks like) but even expresses the importance of love over other gifts that are given to Christians, even our speech. Take 1 Cor 13:1 (NASB):
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
No matter what you say, whether it is true, from God, or neither, without love the information becomes nothing but noise. Not only that but like a noisy gong, painful to hear, and we know that the Word of God is already hard for us to hear as it sanctifies us (John 17:17) being sharper than a two edged sword (Heb 4:12) used for correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).

Paul dives deep into the depth of what love is since Christ-followers were re-created to show a new level of love to this world. It is a love that even loves our adversaries (Matt 5:44, Luke 6:23). This picture was captured perfectly in Jesus' final hours. As He went on that cross for our sin, He called out to His father: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). There is no love greater than this.

This world, and Satan, desires a different kind of love. It is the anti-love, the opposite of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:
It demands things now!
It gives out of spite or anger, expecting something in return.
It brags about how great they are.
It holds onto the things of this world, such as possessions.
It celebrates unrighteousness (morally wrong actions) rather than truth.
It pulls out past sins to build their own case.
It refuses to bear the burdens of the broken.
Refuses to believe others.
Refuses to point to a greater hope.
It is unwilling to endure to the end.

The world is attractive because it gives us back our selfishness, our pride, and possessions. Most of the time it is not direct, but subtle. Perhaps you are good at speaking for truth, but pull out past sins? Maybe you give away all of your possessions, but then brag about it? There is always one area that we struggle with or, like me, several areas. Paul is writing so that we would follow Christ's example of love completely, not the world's (1 John 2:15-17, 4:5, 5:19 Romans 12:2, James 4:4, Matt 16:26, John 15:19, 17:14-16).

One area that I have noticed a lack of Christian love in our response to racism. Instead of responding in love, searching our hearts (and our history) for any wrongdoing, we get offended and defensive. Then, instead of listening to the pain, we strip off Christian love for worldly love:
I do not believe you, there is no racism. Just classes. You should make more money.
Those people need to get a job, stop looking for handouts.
You should get out of the situation by working harder. Live the American dream.
That person deserved it by committing a crime.
Most of the police are good, so you should keep overlooking these evils for their sake.

This reminds me of the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37. We are looking at the man beaten and bloody laying in the street. We not only walk on the other side but tell him he should have worked harder in life. My wife wrote a post about this parable, you should read it. And this lack of Christian love is resulting in what we see today.

These posts reflect a view far from God's radical love, and in a time when we should be reflecting God’s wonderful redemptive plan. In the midst of the brokenness of the world, we reveal the beauty of the one who came to restore it. We should spur each other on to show this form of Love, even rebuke those who do not (Gal 6:1, 1 Tim 5:20, Eph 4:15, Matt 18). We should be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Christian Love is hard because of the fall. We are broken by sin and this world, falling short of God's ways. Instead of showing love the way Jesus does, we redefine the term by cutting and pasting our own definition. It is our form of covering our sin with fig leaves, trying to hide it from God. We love out of pride, as if we hold the truth in the world (after we redefine what truth is, of course).

But this is not a call to "straighten up and fly right", but a call to repentance. This is a fight to put Christ in his rightful place. It is a call to examine our hearts for who, or what, we are following. When we follow this world, we love like the world. We demand more, show compassion less. We blame them more, us less. We protect what we have more, give less. We falter to the worldly loves.

I know what Christ is capable of, He demonstrated that to the world. He restored this broken heart of stone and replaced it with a new heart. But there was a dark time in my life. A time, as a new Christian, where I wanted to respond in Christ's love, but ended up following the world's version of it.


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