Tough Love

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." John 15:9-19

I know that in day to day life, there are just those people who irritate you or who you just can't stand or who have hurt you or continue to hurt you, and you just want tell them off or perhaps just forget all about them. They don't deserve to be loved and so you aren't going to give it to them. Yeah, it happens all the time, to everyone, and it is just easier to dismiss those people because the more you think about them, the more upset you get. And who needs to walk around with anger all the time?

I don't know anyone, including myself, who hasn't felt like this at one time or another in varying degrees. But I have found in struggling through these feelings with God, the he has something better for the Christian than what we tend to think would be the "easier" way. I think this passage helps illuminate that calling.

First of all, I would like to note that God doesn't suggest that we love one another, he commands that we do. In not loving others, we are sinning against God, telling him that his command isn't the best way to conduct our lives, and that we just don't want to "abide in his love." We are rejecting Christ's example.

Second, I would like to note that one of your intuitions about people is correct: people don't deserve love- yours or God's. As humans, we are all sinners, completely depraved and unable to do good. We deserve nothing else but to be cast into hell for all eternity. Other people don't deserve our love, so our ability and desire must spring from somewhere else, from someone worthy.

Where do we look? To God and his example through Christ. "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you." Christ loved a people, and suffered and died for them, while they were enemies to him and hated and persecuted him. (Romans 5:8) He did not choose the easy path, but the way of suffering. He looked to "the joy set before him." (Hebrews 12:1-2) He obeyed the command of God because he is in constant fellowship with God. Another thing to note in this passage, is that God is the initiator of love: "You did not choose me, but I chose you..." He did not wait for us to come to him and did not look at our worthiness, but at his own. He pursues us with his love.

Think about your friends, your boyfriend/girlfriend, your spouse, etc., and for the most part, it can be easy to love them because they possess something in themselves that inclines you to love them. They have merit in your eyes. When they hurt you, it is more difficult to love them, but something in the back of your mind often reminds you of their qualities and forgiveness becomes more easy. Sometimes. And there are those people mentioned above. We know that we need to love them, that God calls us to that. They have no merit on their own and so we must look at to Christ and his worthiness to supply our motive. God is perfectly holy and good and loving and completely worthy above all things of our affections. We must abide in Christ's love, and let the outpouring of his spirit be the content of our actions. And we must pursue the love of others actively. Whether people hurt us or hate us. And this and other passages tell us that they will- it's guranteed! We will suffer on account of Christ and we must respond to that suffering actively, ever trusting in the power of Christ,even though they may never thank us for loving them or respond to our actions or pursuits. Talk about tough love.

Jesus also mentions in these verse that he tells us these things so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete. We have joy when we are delighting in the sufficiency of God. We are saying that there is nothing outside of God that we love more than him, and proclaim that we love anything else only because of our love to him and who he is. When we love others by his power, we are saying that we delight in his command and accept it as the best way for our lives. In this way, we glorify God. The road will not always be easy, but God supplies the power and the joy.

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The cloud ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

Hymn by William Cowper, 1774

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I know that recently I have struggled in my head saying, "I just can't do this or that thing. I am not strong enough, I don't have enough faith, I am too tired..." But this verse, given to me by a friend at the beginning of the semester, keeps coming back to me. It has been a slap in the face..."You're right, Sarah, you CAN'T do anything, at least, not without God's sustaining power and His grace. Let God fight your battles through you. Don't try to do it on your own strenght because you can't." God has already provided us with everything that we need and his grace is sufficient. We do not boast in ourselves as though we have done anything, but we boast in the cross and the person of Christ (Galatians 6:14). What a mighty, gracious God we serve!

I am still in school...

In Greek this semester, we have been translating Plato's Crito, in which Socrates' friend, Crito, tries to convince Socrates that he needs to escape from prison. (Socrates of course has been tried and is only awaiting the arrival of the ship from Delos when he will be excuted.) Crito, in one argument, says that if Socrates does not come out with the help of his friends, everyone will think ill of his friends. Socrates then takes Crito through an argument that they have in the past agreed upon, which proceeds as follows:

Socrates: Does it not seem to be said fully to you that it is necessary not to honor all the opinions of men but some of them and not others, and that it is necessary not to honor the opinions of all men but the opinions of some men, and of others not? What do you say? Are these things not said well?
Crito: Yes, they are said well.
Socrates: So then, shouldn’t we honor the good ones and not the bad ones?
Crito: Yes.
Socrates: Are not excellent opinions from sensible men and evil opinions from the foolish?
Crito: And how not?
Socrates: Come now, how again did such things used to be said? Does a man practicing and doing gymnastics listen either to the recommendation and blame and opinion of every man, or of only that one who is his physician and physical trainer?
Crito: Of only one.
Socrates: Therefore, it is necessary to fear the blame and to esteem the recommendation of that one but not the blame and approval of many.
Crito: Surely, these things are clear.
Socrates: So then, in this way he should train and practice and eat and drink in the way it would seem best to his master who has understanding, rather than in the way it seems to all the others put together.
Crito: These things are true.
Socrates: Well, then. Will he disobey his trainer and not honor his opinions and approval, but will honor the ones of many who understand nothing, and will he suffer no evil on account of this?
Crito: For how not?
Socrates: But what is this bad thing, and what does it affect, and toward what of these things of the person who disobeys?
Crito: It is clear that it affects the body, for it ruins this.
Socrates: You speak well. *** Then is it livable to us to have a worthless and ruined body?
Crito: By no means.

When I read through this passage, I was struck with the application to the Christian life. When considering our choices and perspectives as Christians, we should not consider the opinons of other people no matter how right they may seem, but view the world as God views the world. In our race, Christ is our trainer and no matter what happens to us or what other people may say or do to us, we must look to him (Hebrews 12:1-2). I guess this may seem obvious, but I also think it is important.