The Vine – Love? No worries!

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends… This is my command: Love each other.” John 15:9-13, 17

Love each other?!
That’s it? Really!?
Not walking on water or making mountains move or parting the sea?
What about spending my life making a massive boat? Or giving up my job to spread the gospel?
That’s it, just remain in God’s love.
Easy! [I say with a confident shrug of my shoulders].
Easy? Really?! Think about it.
Last Sunday when you were in church, did you love everyone?
Yeah, of course. They’re my brother’s and sister’s. You mess with them you mess with me!
Really?! I’m talking about ‘love’ here, not just tolerating or co-existing. What about that person who’s voice just goes through you? What about the one that always tell you how bad their week has been? Or the person you can’t stand because of the way they discipline their children? Can you really say that you love the person who frustrates you because they never stand up to be counted? What about the one that is unconsciously rude to people, unaware of how their actions affect others? What about those you know who have drifted from church to church and you half suspect they’ll move on again at some point for some reason. Do you love them? Would you seriously volunteer to lay down your very life for them?
That’s tough. You can’t love everyone right?! I don’t hate them, does that count?
But we are commanded to love, aren’t we?
But that is just plain unreasonable. God knows, we can’t love everyone. It’s impossible.
Doesn’t “remain in [God’s] love” mean that we should love those it is unreasonable to love?
I can’t.
Neither can I, but we can rely on God’s heart to beat in our chests. Give Him free reign in our lives so that we can love as God loved.

One time, as I was driving along the motorway to my visit my parents, I was thinking about this very subject. At the time I was helping out with the Rough Sleepers Mission and I was troubled because I didn’t just want to hand out food and coffee to these guys on a Friday night. I wanted to have a real impact, to love them and not just [ineffectively] serve them.

As I thought/prayed about this I felt the Holy Spirit say that I would need to love them as Jesus loved them. It is only when we do this that we will dramatically impact people’s lives as Jesus did. When we see this sort of love consume us we will see the miraculous.

Allowing this to sink in I asked God to show me how he loved. I have never forgotten the result of this prayer.

As I drove along a gentleman that I was working with at the time came to mind. Generally he angered me. He was an objectionable character and more than that a bad manager and a lazy worker with no understanding of what he was doing! He was also going through a divorce but I was very unsympathetic. From the things that he said about his wife it was clear that he was not a successful husband (I couldn’t pass judgement on her part in the breakdown). Worse than that he was angry with his wife and did not think twice about using their young son to get back at her. Using him as a weapon. He was even failing as a father!
But as he came into my head I felt God warn me; ‘This is how I love’. I suddenly found my anger go. Not just go it was consumed, invaded, overcome by love, a deep love for this fellow man. Not a love for his character or actions or attitudes, but a love for him.
Despite my reasoned loathing of him at that moment I would have laid down my life for him. I wanted him to know his Heavenly Father’s love at any cost because he was worth it, he needed it.
This could have only lasted a moment but I remember crying out that it was too much to bear. This love was too much. As I felt God take the weight of this love I became aware that He was teaching me; ‘You can only love like this through Me, it does not come from you. Live leaning against Me so that you can hear My heart beat. So that you can feel it beating through you, in you. People want to see this heart beat, my heart beat, in your life.’
Life and love are combined in this beat, God’s heart beat.

We do not have to strive to love those that we do not naturally love. We surrender completely to God, allowing Him to love through us. Today we can give God free reign of our hearts. It’s OK we can trust him because we know He loves us. That is the question over my life today; will I surrender to God?