Obedient Lovers of Jesus

 

Jesus equated love with obedience:

“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept 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.” [John 15:10-12]

But the idea of loving others can be challenging. Especially when it comes to loving our enemies.

 

I've been in numerous debates in the last few days. Mostly with Christians who want to wiggle out of Jesus' command to love our enemies. We want to redefine "Love" or look for different meanings of the word "Kill", or make ammendments for self-defense.

 

Then, quite often, Christians will bring up the Holocaust or the Nazi's in WW2 and ask, "Why didn't non-violence stop Hitler? 

Here's something almost no one realizes: The Nazi's had no way of dealing with those who responded with non-violent resistance.

“B.H. Liddell-Hart, widely acknowledged as the foremost military writer of our times, discovered in his interrogation of Nazi generals after World War II that they had little trouble dealing with violent resistance except in mountainous areas of Russia and the Balkins, or where advancing armies were close. But they expressed complete inability to cope with nonviolence as practiced in Denmark, Holland, Norway, and, to a lesser extent, in France and Belgium.

“’They were experts in violence, and had been trained to cope with opponents who used that method. But other forms of resistance baffled them. They were relieved when nonviolence was mixed with guerilla operations, which made it easier to combine suppressive action against both at the same time.’

“The generals found friendly noncompliance more frustrating than any other form of resistance, and had no effective means to counter it. ‘If practiced with a cheerful smile and an air of well-meaning mistake, due to incomprehension or clumsiness, it becomes even more baffling…. This subtle kind of resistance cannot really be dealt with in terms of force: indeed, nothing can deal with it. There is really no answer to such go-slow tactics.”  - Excerpt from "Engaging the Powers" by Walter Wink.

 

So, we can't point to a conflict which was initiated, and escalated, by those who believe in violence as an example of how non-violence couldn't stop it. Especially when we can see that non-violence does work - and did work - in situations where it was actually put into practice. [And there are several examples of how non-violence worked during WW2, and in other conflicts worldwide, from Liberia to India and even in the good ole' USA].

 

But, again, please keep in mind that Christian non-violence is not "doing nothing". It involves trusting Jesus for wisdom, strength, protection and grace in the midst of suffering, oppression and hate.

The goal is not to become door mats. The goal is to become ambassadors of Christ and to demonstrate - as He did - the abounding, endless, audacious love of God to those who have never experienced it as we have.

 

The hope is that our enemies will be transformed by the surprising love of Christ when we return blessings instead of curses, and love instead of hate.

 

Many have been completely transformed by this unexpected outpouring of love in response to acts of violence. Early Christian history - the first 300 years especially - is full of examples of exactly this kind of radical love which transforms the purveyors of violence.

 

When it works this way, it's beautiful. No weapon can stop it. No aggression can overcome it. Light truly does push back the darkness. Love really does overwhelm hate.

But, sometimes it doesn't always result in repentance and transformation. And in those cases, we may die. But if we die, then we die, and in that way we "share in the sufferings of Christ". What greater honor can there be than to follow Jesus all the way to our death?

I don't know about you, but I would rather die because I was putting the commands of Jesus into practice than to kill another person because my Government said so.

For a follower of Jesus, death is where we begin our journey with Him:

 

"For we died and our lives are now hidden with Christ in God." [Col. 3:3]
"If anyone would follow me let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me." -Jesus

Self-preservation is not our goal. Obedience unto death to the Lord of Life and the Prince of Peace is.

Do we trust Jesus to take care of us as we put His commands into practice? And if we suffer for doing good, that's what it's all about, isn't it?

 

“But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” [1 Peter 2:20-21]

Yes, non-violence quite often does work, when it is put into practice by obedient disciples of Jesus who are following His example of humility and love.

And even if it doesn't end with our lives being spared, that's not the point. The purpose is to put on display the extravagant love of Jesus that has filled us, and the whole earth.

 

This is the love that can change the human heart and transform our community, our nation and our world - one person at a time.

 

But it will only work if we put the commands of Jesus into practice.

 

"A new command I give you: Love one another as I have loved you." - Jesus

 

How has Jesus loved you? This is how you should love others - yes, even your enemies.

 

"If you only love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" - Jesus

 

Are we really following Jesus, or do we just "believe in" Him?

 

If we really love Jesus, according to Him, we will obey His commands.

 

Jesus makes it very clear: "Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you" [Luke 6:27].

 

I would never kill someone I loved. Therefore, we cannot kill our enemies if we hope to be obedient disciples of Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

 

"Now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. And the greatest of these is Love". [1 Cor. 13]

 

-kg

**

[Special Thanks to Travis Glenn Blankenship for the Walter Wink reference]

IRONIC CHRISTIANITY

[Subversive Radio Podcast] Review: American Sniper

A few thoughts after watching the film, "American Sniper" and the slow death of the myth of redemptive violence.

[Subversive Radio Podcast] Blessed Are The Torturers?

Is Jesus for or against torture? Wasn't he arrested, beaten, tortured and killed by the Empire? How then should His followers respond when we hear that our own nation has tortured and killed people? Listen as we explore this controversial topic.

Spectacular Fail Or Abiding Life?

"Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord' and do not do what I say?" - Jesus (Luke 6:46)

A few days ago I suggested to a friend of mine that should consider the words of Jesus regarding love for enemies before he continued to express his hatred for Muslim people.

Not only did my friend not take that advice very well, he quickly accused me of being a "self-righteous Pharisee" and said that Jesus "opposed" being a Pharisee.  Before I could respond he un-friended me and ended the conversation.

I could write a blog about how wrong my friend was in this case. I could go on and on about the irony of his using Jesus' distaste for Pharisees to justify an opposition to the practice of urging a fellow Christian to obey the words of Jesus, when what Jesus commanded was that we teach one another to obey all that he commanded. But I won't.

Instead, I'd like to talk about how I have failed to obey Jesus, even as I call him my "Lord."

It's too easy to react to the failures of others, isn't it? Peter was quick to point to the Apostle John and ask Jesus, "What about him?" when Jesus had just told Peter to follow him and feed his sheep.

And Jesus response to Peter is the same to you and to me: "What is it to you? Follow me!"

So, I have to examine my own heart first and when I do I realize that lately there have been several times when I have called Jesus "Lord, Lord" even though I was not doing what He said to do.

I have failed to love my neighbor as I love myself.
I've failed to risk my pride in order to serve someone else.
I've held back my money from those who asked for help because of my own selfishness.
I've joined in the gossip talk at work rather than walk away, or offer a positive perspective about the person being roasted.

That's just for starters.

Jesus sincerely wants us to follow Him. He absolutely expects us to put his words into practice. That's why, right after he spoke those words about calling him "Lord, Lord" he went on to tell this parable:

"For I will show you what the one who comes to Me and listens to My words, and puts them into practice is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock.
 
"But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great." (Luke 6:47-49)

So, Jesus isn't vague about this. He warns us that our lives depend upon putting his words into practice. His words are life. But they are not simply words to be believed, or accepted as true. No. Jesus demands that those who follow him sincerely put his words into practice, daily.

I love when Jesus washes the disciples' feet on the night he is betrayed, and afterwards he sits back down and says:
"Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." (John 13:17)

Knowing the truth isn't the same as doing it. Being a Christian isn't only about what you believe, it's actually more about what you do with the things you say you believe.

In other words, it's just as much about Orthopraxy (what you do), as it is about Orthodoxy (what you believe).

When another person fails so spectacularly at following Jesus, and runs hard in the opposite direction to avoid even discussing the possibility of putting Jesus' words into practice, it should not make us feel superior.

Far from it.

It should knock us to our knees. Not only to pray for our brothers and sisters who are building their lives on the sand, but to take a good, hard look into the mirror and honestly evaluate our own unwillingness to put the words of our Lord into practice.

We will only give an account of ourselves before the Lord for everything we have done or said in this life. What has been said in the darkness will come into the light. Every idle word will be proclaimed from the rooftops.

That is why I'm confessing my own failures and exposing my own areas of weakness, here and now.

I'm asking Jesus to come and live and breathe in me anew, and to empower me with His Spirit to love as He loves, give as He gives, serve as He serves, and live as He lives.

Like Paul, I forget the past and press on to the high calling of Christ. My hope is not in my own strength, but in His.

My confidence lies only in this: "When I am weak, then I am strong", for my own weakness "is the power of Christ at work in me." (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

Without Him, I can do nothing. But if He abides in me, and if I abide in Him, together we will bear much fruit.

What the world needs now are more Christians who are serious about taking the words of Jesus and putting them into practice.

Let the abiding begin.

-kg

[Subversive Radio] Interview: Greg Boyd - Following Jesus Into Nonviolence

Keith Giles interviews Greg Boyd, author of "The Myth of a Christian Nation" about what Jesus really meant by loving our enemies, and how taking those words seriously can change not only our own hearts, but the whole world itself.