Radical Love
When it comes to music, I'm a singer-alonger. If I'm driving in the car - and honestly it doesn't matter if I'm alone - I'll normally have the music loud and I'll be singing gleefully along with it. I can't help it. When I listen to music I get this feeling of joy and excitement. It feels like this energy coursing throughout my entire body and eventually I just can't take it anymore...out of jubilation I have to sing along!
In this same way, as the love of God fills the heart of the follower of Christ, it overflows as if a glass of water. The love of God spills out from us into our love for the church, other people, and even our enemies. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul gives us a list of suggestive instructions for that should be the hallmarks of Christ's love pouring out of our hearts.
Romans 12:9-21
Genuine love is the foundation for all of the following instructions from Paul. That cannot be overemphasized. Everything that follows is born of genuine love. Paul says Christian love be without hypocrisy, pure and sincere.
R. Kent Hughes explains this genuine love:
The word for “love” here is agape, which to this point had been used in Romans only for divine love (5:5; 8:35, 39), except in 8:28 where it is used for man’s love for God. But here the word is used to indicate the kind of love Christians are to show to others—a Godlike love that loves regardless of the circumstances, a deliberate love that decides it will keep loving even if it is rebuffed. We are challenged to live out the highest love and to do so with the highest sincerity. Our love is to be genuine, not counterfeit. (Preaching The Word: Romans, Love In Action)
Agape is Godlike love. The heart of the man who is filled with Christ's love will love others sincerely and without hypocrisy. When we love others regardless of circumstances we love like God. When we set our hearts on deliberately loving others we love like God. A great example is the deliberate love of the covenant of marriage. We vow to forsake all others and love our spouse with sincere, unchanging, deliberate love.
One way we love is to flee from evil and affix ourselves firmly to what is good. This is one of the central goals of Christian discipleship. We live our lives in constant repentance from our evil ways as we seek to cement ourselves to God's goodness and truth. God disciplines us like children because true love offers truth. A parent disciplines a child when they have done wrong, a spouse offers corrective encouragement for her husband when he has made a mistake. Love seeks the best for the other which sometimes means saying hard truths.
10) Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
The love within the Church should have a familial affection. We have been adopted as sons and daughters into God's family by the death and resurrection of Jesus and our faith which was given by God's grace! We should delight and sincerely appreciate all of those in our family, in Christ - who too have received the gift of God's grace. Today as we were in line to receive communion, I rejoiced to Allison at all the people who were also in line, "We're gonna be in heaven with all these people!"
We are also called to seek to honor others, and not ourselves. We don't need the seats of prominence, we can hang out in the back.
11) Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
The idea Paul is communicating here is that you should be boiling over with love and a fervent spirit. Do not slothful or sluggish but be overflowing with desire to be of service to the Lord through submission and obedience to Him. I notice this when I write these blog posts - I can't help but write them because by God's grace, I am boiling over with excitement to encourage others to draw near to Him!
12) Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
The love of God fills our hearts and allows us to rejoice in the hope we have in Christ. The Christian life can be a roller coaster at times, moments of joy followed by painfully bleak times of despair, but we know the genuine love we have with God in Christ and therefore we can remain steadfast. In all circumstances, whether sunshine or rain we stay constant in our prayer life because of God's genuine love for us.
13) Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
We are in partnership, in fellowship, members of the same body in Christ Jesus and therefore joyfully called to contribute to each other's needs. More than only loving the body of Christ we are to seek to show hospitality.
The Greek word for hospitality used here is philoxenia, which means "love of strangers." This is a call for all of us to be others-focused, literally to seek earnestly to show the love of Christ to strangers. We are transformed from living for our goals to desiring to serve others' needs. Jesus came out of glory with the Father to become a man and seek and save the lost - so too are we to pursue others. We are called to chase after others with our love: the homeless, the weak, the lowly, the refugee, the outcast and the downtrodden are to be in our sight! Jesus came to for the stranger, the alien - that was us! Having been saved, we are to be like our Lord as we pursue the stranger and alien in our world!
14) Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
One of the strongest distinguishing marks of the love of Jesus in the hearts of his followers is blessing our enemies. Jesus came to reconcile his enemies to himself, and in him we have every spiritual blessing! Filled with Christ's love, we are enabled not to revile or despise our enemy like the world does, but to beg and plead with God to bless them with faith and love and prosperity! Right now, call to mind someone that has hurt you incredibly deeply - and pray for them! It is absolute bliss to bless one's enemies - true freedom is found in the act!
I remember working with a guy, who one day just began to vocally curse me and belittle me to others, while I was standing nearby in his presence. He sharply and vulgarly cursed my character and work-ethic. There was no getting around it, his comments hurt my heart deeply - I was wounded. (NOTE: My old self before Jesus would have cussed this guy out, possibly sought to fight him or have him fired.)
Motivated by Christ's love, I immediately began praying for him. I prayed for him to know Jesus, for his life to be blessed, for his health and his daughter. My heart flooded with joy and deep love for this man who had cursed me. Later, I was empowered to seek reconciliation with him and to learn why he was so upset. It turned out to have nothing to do with me at all! This is the kind of love Christ calls us to, because it is how he loves us!
15) Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
The love of Christ seeks to meet others at their level, whether in joy or pain. We are to share in other's joy, and we are to enter into their grief. Have you ever had someone enter into your grief with you? That kind of loving empathy is one of the most powerful acts of shared person hood.
16) Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
The wisdom of God is to be our focus. Wisdom in our own sight creates an attitude of haughtiness, highness of mind and opinion. We are called to humbly strive for harmony by associating ourselves with a lowly condition. A jar of hardened clay can't be molded.
17) Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
The apostle Paul says this about his goals of promoting the gospel:
"For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings." (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV)
Rather than repay others, we are to do what is honorable. If we are hurt, injured, persecuted it doesn't matter. We are to become all things to all people by being servants to them. We are called to do what is honorable in the sight of all because of the love of Christ that flows through us.
18) If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
In Christ, God reconciles sinners to himself. We have been reconciled by the blood of Christ to God and are called to live in light of this reconciliation by doing all we can to live peaceably with all. Jesus says, "So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24 ESV)
God's love enables us to be people who initiate reconciliation and seek to live at peace with others.
19) Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Paul wrote this while living in a first century culture that certainly lived vengefully! However, our trust in God empowers us to lay down our desires for personal vindication. We are not to seek our own vengeance but to trust God and bless others.
Genuine love is always God-focused and others-focused.
20) To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Genuine love helps. Genuine love powers through the hostilities of this world to meet the needs of those in need. Genuine love pushes through barriers of hurt, pain, and anger to help others.
21) Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-12 ESV)
"Not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son...for our sins" (v.10)
How radical the love of Christ that transforms us!
The love of Christ turns hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
Jesus gave his life to make his enemies his friends. When the love of God fills our hearts, genuine love pours out of us and we are empowered to do the same. We give our lives in love to the Church, to our neighbor, and to our enemy. We proclaim the good news of the gospel - you don't have to "clean up" to be good enough for God. Jesus has died for your sins. Respond to God's love in faith by accepting the free gift of grace.When the love of God floods into our hearts, we become imitators of God, following the example of Christ, giving ourselves up for others that they might know the good news of the gospel and put their faith in Christ.
Is your life in the Church characterized by the genuine love of Christ? Toward your neighbor? Your enemy?
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