the most important question Jesus is asking men right now
"Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams."
Dostoevsky
"Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar."
1 John 4:20
We all know that love is the most important part of the Christian faith.
Jesus could not have made it clearer, yet in my 28 years of pastoral ministry, I have never had a single person come up to me and ask what our church's plan was to ensure that we love one another as Christ has loved us.
I have had people ask about doctrine, politics, women in ministry, Calvinism, the end times, the role of Israel, and prophecy. I have had people ask about the church and politics, LGBTQ issues, just war theory, revival and awakening, and expository preaching. Yet, no one has ever asked me about the question that seemed to be most on Jesus’ mind:
"How are we going to love one another as He has loved us?"
And yet, when someone models the love Jesus talked about, the world quietly sits back with a kind of reverent respect and awe. Erika Kirk's forgiveness of the young man who murdered her husband was one of those moments. Even the harshest liberal critics paid respect to her courageous forgiveness and otherworldly love. The whole service was 5 hours or so long, with a lot of noise, but this was pure signal. Enemy love is the secret weapon that conquered the Roman Empire. What a tragedy that it’s so often not deployed, when its potency and power were on such clear display.
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I often wonder why the kind of love Jesus commanded us to show is so rare and seemingly neglected in the church today. I honestly believe that at the core of our being, we want to love others well. God has given us new hearts, not of stone but of flesh, yet so few of us have been really taught how to love well. We seem to get caught up in the same cultural, social, and political divides as the rest of the world. Despite 2000 years of clear teaching, flashes of saintly love through the lives of God's people, and prophetic calls to rise above the division and anxiety of our age, so few love well.
But as Philip Yancey reminds us,
"I doubt God keeps track of how many arguments we win; God may indeed keep track of how well we love."
He goes on…
"Here’s a good test of how well we love: Are other people glad to be with us? Somehow, Jesus managed to attract the kind of people frowned upon by most religious types, and yet those renegades clearly liked being with Jesus. Think of the prostitute who crashed a dinner party and anointed him with expensive perfume, or of Zacchaeus, a tax collector scorned by his neighbors as a Roman collaborator. Rather than judging them, Jesus loved and honored them, and in the process brought to the surface a thirst that only he could satisfy."
I have been reminded during some of the past cultural events that it’s hard to love your enemies like Jesus told us to when you are trying to destroy them. How quickly we forget that Jesus' final words from the cross were "Father, forgive them," not 'Father, get them." Jesus' disciple John once tried to call down fire on a Samaritan village that rejected Jesus, yet he ended up being known as an apostle of love. His life was a story of learning to love well. Towards the end of his life, he wrote these confronting words:
"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him…"
1 John 3:14-15
Then this:
"Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister."
1 John 4:20-21
The fire of love burned out the fire of judgment. Oh, that this kind of fire would burn in us for our cultural moment.
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But this is not mere sentiment, mushy "third wayism," or cowardice. Getting pissed off is easy; asking God to bless your enemies can only be prayed through gritted, obedient teeth. Jesus knew this about the human heart's capacity to love so well. He said in Matthew 5:43-48:
"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
Then He does something extraordinary—He roots enemy love in God's love. It’s precisely when we love our enemies that we most resemble our heavenly Father. It’s when we are kind to those who don’t deserve it that we reveal His love to the world.
"You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."
Who would you categorize as your current enemy?
What would it look like to "do good" to them?
What would "blessing them" mean?
Using a kingdom imagination, how could God change your heart to love them?
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In Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, Father Zosima answers a woman seeking proof and guidance about God:
"I am sorry I can say nothing more to console you, for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all. Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over, with all looking on and applauding as though on stage. But active love is labor and fortitude, and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science."
The love our world needs is this harsh and dreadful love.
Love that is labor and fortitude.
Love that forgives people who murder their husbands.
Jesus’ love.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers.
Jon.
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Discussion Questions:
The church debates doctrine, politics, and cultural issues constantly, but rarely strategizes about love. Why do you think love is so often neglected as a central agenda in the church, and what would it look like if it became the first priority in your local community?
John began as a "son of thunder," wanting to call down fire on his enemies, yet ended as the apostle of love. What does this say about the kind of transformation Jesus wants to work in us, and where do you see yourself on that journey?
1 John 4:20 calls anyone a liar who claims to love God but hates a brother. In what ways do you find it easier to declare love for God than to actually love the people closest to you? Who in your life is most challenging to love right now?
Jesus said loving only those who love you makes you no different from the world. Who in your life right now would fall into the category of "enemy," and what specific step of doing good toward them would stretch you?
If love is the ultimate test of whether we have passed from death to life (1 John 3:14), what evidence in your life right now would demonstrate that you are truly alive in Christ?
