THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS

We cannot properly speak of the ministry of reconciliation without first experiencing the very deep and profound ache of separation and the ruthless brutality of life apart from the love of God.

Once we truly know the overwhelming despair of being so separated from the Father, then we might begin to understand how a word of condemnation from our lips could never, in any way, be confused with the kind of self-giving agape love that Jesus calls us to demonstrate to people who have never experienced it as we have.

"Love one another as I have loved you." - Jesus

This means that our mission is to love people sincerely, and from the heart.[1 Peter 1:22]

We have to stop first and ask: "How has Jesus loved me?"

And then we take from that list and find ways to duplicate that kind of self-sacrificing, others-focused love to people who need it the most.

How do you know if you're loving people the way Jesus commanded?

Simple: If they feel loved, then you're doing it right. 

If they don't feel loved by you, then you're doing it wrong.

No Christian should ever cause anyone to doubt that God loves them.

And that love has to start with us.

"Go and do likewise." - Jesus

-kg

NOTHING GOOD IN ME? [THINK AGAIN]

Many of you are aware that our family and our house church have been serving at a motel locally for the last 17 years or so.

Our ministry is largely to those people who live in the motel because they cannot afford to live in an apartment or purchase a home in Orange County, California where affordable housing is hard to come by.

We also minister to a lot of people who are actually homeless and either sleep outside, or in their vehicle, or in a local shelter whenever they can find a vacancy.

Last month I happened to see a witnessing tract that one of the people at the motel church had picked up during the week at one of the Christian shelters or ministries to the homeless.

I picked it up and flipped through it and what I saw really angered me. In fact, I decided to confiscate the tract and later tossed into the trash can.

Why? Because this "Good News" was anything but. As an example, near the end it said this:

"You are filthy, disgusting, hateful and offensive to God. If you are not a Christian, this is how He sees you."

Really? Is that what Jesus tells us? Is that how the Apostles share the Good News of the Kingdom with people?

What about the parable of the prodigal son that Jesus shares to let us know that the Father is longing for us to return and eager to welcome us with open arms?

What about the declaration from the mouth of Jesus that "God so loved the world..."?

Even for those who are far away from God, He does not see them as filthy or disgusting or hateful people. He sees people made in His own image whom He longs to draw nearer to Himself.

As Paul reminded the pagan Athenians: "[God] is actually not far from each one of us. For, 'In Him we live and move and have our being.'" [Acts 17:27-28]

That means those who are near and those who are far away both remain in His presence and are surrounded by His enduring love.

Then, later in the week, I listened to a worship song that said, "There is nothing good in me" and I had to stop and ask, "Is that true?"

Maybe before I came to Christ it could be said that there was nothing good in me, but now that I am in Christ, there IS something - or SOMEONE - very good in me: Jesus!

Jesus tells us that "I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." [John 14:20]

He also says:

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." [John 14:23]

And later Jesus says:

"Remain in me and I will remain in you." [John 15:4]

So, we should never say: "There is nothing good in me" ever again as long as we are in Christ.

There is someone good in me - and in you - and His name is Jesus.

Rest in His goodness. Trust in His transformational presence. Rely on Him to make you like Jesus.

"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." [1 John 4:16]

God's view of you is better than you think it is. He sees you as someone worth dying for. That means everyone around you is loved by God as well.

Don't buy the lie that God hates you, or is disgusted by you. Stop talking as if Jesus does not live inside you by His Holy Spirit. 

There is SO MUCH good in you if you are in Christ and He is in you!

Do you believe it?

-kg

DO I SUPPORT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION?

Over the weekend a friend on Facebook questioned me about this issue of illegal immigration and the refugee crisis.

My original post was a link to an article that highlighted the inevitable clash between churches that offer amnesty or sanctuary to those fearing deportation, and the Immigration Enforcement Agencies that are tasked with finding, arresting and deporting these people.

His question was this:

"I am curious to hear your defense of someone illegally entering a foreign nation, and following that up with repeatedly violating multiple other laws of that nation while simultaneously illegally receiving a variety of monetary benefits...Surely you aren't going to argue that the mere "existence" of immigration laws represents an "unjust law" that - as a believer - can be morally ignored? I'm just trying to establish a 'baseline' for your argument, here. Where does 'just enforcement' begin, in your view? Or is there no such thing?"

It's a fair question and one that that I myself have wrestled with over the years as someone who has tried to reconcile my faith with everything else in my life. 

In the past, I might have tried to do exactly what he asked me to do: Justify the legality of immigration laws in our country, or seek to directly balance the words of Jesus with American immigration policy.

But that's not what I do anymore. I have a different perspective now. 

Here's how I answered my friend:

"Do I need to justify prostitution to care for a prostitute? Is it 'anti-criminal justice' to serve in prison ministry? Am I pro-drug use if I serve someone who is addicted to drugs?

"No. We show mercy and grace and the love of Jesus to everyone."
See, we don't need to limit our ministry to those who are "righteous" and "law-abiding". In fact, to do so would be completely pointless. 

If someone is already "good" then who needs Jesus?

And Jesus was quick to point out that it was only those who were sick who need a physician, and it's only those who admit they are blind that receive healing for their blindness.

The greatest blindness, of course, is not recognizing our own blind spots. If we fail to see ourselves in the outcast, and the poor, and the broken, then we also fail to see Jesus in them as well.

"Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done it unto me," Jesus reminds us. 

So, we really only love Jesus as much as we love the people around us who are poor, and weak, and hungry, and thirsty, and naked and in prison.

What's more, we are reminded in the New Testament that we ourselves are equally in need of Jesus and His mercy and grace and healing as anyone - and everyone - else we see:

"Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?....And that is what some of you were." [1 Cor. 6:9-11]

We forget that we are no better than anyone else. We are all sinners saved by the same grace. We are all people who are dearly loved of God and in need of His endless mercy.

Refugees and illegal immigrants are people, just like you and me. They love their families. They want to live in peace. They are running from war and oppression and poverty and looking to find a new life here - just the way we would if it was our family - our children - who were starving and dying and in need of safety.

Regardless of what the laws might say, we are answerable to a higher authority. Jesus, our glorious eternal King, commands us to treat everyone - especially the weakest among us - as if they were Him. 

It's not our job to work out who is most deserving of His mercy. That's way above our pay grade. Our job is to love everyone we see and to recognize that our King commands us to be extravagant with our love. 

So, do I support illegal immigration? No, I don't. But I do support loving everyone around me. If those people happen to be illegal immigrants, or refugees, or Muslims, or anything else, my job is to love them as much as I love Jesus.

If you're following Jesus, it's your job too.

Peace,
-kg

**
My new book, "Jesus Untangled:Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb" is available now on Amazon. 

ORDER HERE
 

A FRESH PERSPECTIVE

In 2 Corinthians, Paul says something that I think most of us have not paid much attention to:
"So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer." [v.16]

What does he mean, "we regard no one from a worldly point of view"?

I think the clue might be in the second sentence: "...we once regarded Christ in this way..."

Think about how the Jews used to regard Christ:

*They thought he would be a mighty warrior
*They expected a violent liberator who would lead an insurrection against their oppressors
*The anticipated a Messiah who would rule from an earthly throne of political power

But they were wrong about Christ.

He didn't come as a warrior. He came as a baby.
He didn't do any violence but responded to violence with love, forgiveness and mercy.
He did not rule from a place of political strength - and He actively resisted it when Satan tempted him in the desert and also when the people sought to make him King by force [see John 6:15] - instead Jesus ruled out of the power of love with an obedience that is intertwined with love [see John 14:15-24]

Now, Paul says, they have come to understand who Christ is because they no longer regard Him from this worldly point of view.

They now have a brand new perspective that is informed by the heart and character of Jesus. He subverted their expectations and now they can see another way.

Because of this, they can now see everyone around them from this fresh new perspective made possible by Jesus.

So, what is this new perspective? Simply this: We now regard everyone around us as people who are dearly loved of God. Whether they are Christians or not. We see everyone as people that God loves profoundly. Regardless of their race, their creed, their color, their orientation, their theology, their nationality, or even if they want to kill us - we only see people who are loved by God as much as we are loved by God.

This means we no longer identify as Americans, or as Mexicans, or as Koreans, or as Baptists, or Methodists, or as Lutherans or Calvinists, or as Democrats or Republicans, or as Conservative or as Liberals. We no longer recognize those worldly points of view in ourselves or in anyone else.

We do not see Muslims or Buddhists. We only see people loved by God.
We no longer see Gays or Lesbians. We only see the people God loves enough to die for.
We no longer see Refugees or Terrorists. We only see people made in the image of our Abba.
We no longer see Male or Female; Jew or Gentile; Slave or Free; Young or Old. We only see people who are loved with an everlasting love that will never die, never end, never change and never, ever fade away.

Do you still regard anyone from a worldly point of view? If so, take another long look at Jesus. Once you see who He is more clearly, you will start to see everyone around more clearly as well.

"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

"We love because he first loved us. 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 4:16-21)

Peace,

-kg

**

My new book "Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb" is available now on Amazon.

ORDER NOW

No Stranger To Love

All of us were once strangers to righteousness. Holiness was an alien concept to us.

Then we met the One who loved us into life again.

His touch rearranged our DNA.

We began to die in that moment. Our old self was crucified, but our new self came alive.

This intimate knowledge of the Infinite conceived a new life within us.

The resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead was now unleashed within us.

Soon, disobedience to our Abba became strange to us. We became aliens to this world around us.

Who we are now is all that matters. What we once were is not worth mentioning again.

We stand now, as new creations, calling out to the Creator as beloved children made in His image.

We are remade for righteousness.

Our new nature is hard-wired to glorify Him with a clean heart

and lips that speak of grace

and voices that magnify His Holy name

and hands that comfort the broken

and arms that support the weak

with eyes that seek for truth

and ears that listen for the still small voice of One so very big.


You, oh God, are remaking us into a people who are like you,

even though there is no one like you,

and even though

“eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and no heart has yet imagined 

the things that God has prepared for those who love Him…

God has revealed all of this to us through His Spirit.” [1 Cor.2:9-10]

“We have the mind of Christ” [1 Cor. 2:16]

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” [2 Cor. 5:17]

“Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” [Phil. 1:6]

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control....and those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” [Gal. 5:22-26]

“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” [2 Peter 1:3]

-kg

5 MINUTE VIDEO: Discipleship [Part 5] "Spiritual Gifts & Love"

Got 5 minutes? Listen as Keith explains why Paul always pairs love with spiritual gifts and why so many organic churches struggle to realize the presence of Jesus when they come together.

PERSPECTIVES CHANGED

I love our house church family. More and more, I'm learning to hear Jesus as He speaks to me through the members of His Body as we gather together around Him.

Most recently, I heard something that really gave me a fresh perspective about pain and suffering.

One of our sisters was sharing about how she had been angry at God. She was upset because it seemed to her that her sister was suffering horribly in areas where she herself was enjoying the blessings of God. This disparity made her angry and she let God know that she needed Him to be as good to her sister as He had been to her. It just didn't seem fair that she should be so blessed and her sister should suffer so horribly without any end in sight.

Eventually, my friend said to God, "If you don't fix this and bless my sister, I'm not sure I can continue to trust in you."

That was quite the ultimatum. I'm sure some of you can relate.

From her perspective, there was an injustice that needed correcting. God loved both of them the same, and yet one of them was being blessed and the other was in pain. Why was that? How could God allow this to continue?

But then my friend gained a new perspective on the entire situation. She slowly started to hear from God the phrase, "I am" in various ways; as she read scripture, as she prayed, and as she spent time with Him, the realization of God as "I am" began to soften her heart and it gave her a fresh angle on everything.

To her, that realization meant that God was so much bigger than the momentary "goodness" or "badness" of a particular person's experience in a given space of time.

But, to me, as she was sharing this with all of us on a Sunday morning, what I heard the Lord say to me was this: "Get to know me better. All of these experiences you have - Blessing, Pain, Joy, Suffering - all of these are opportunities for you to know me in a deeper way."

Immediately, my mind went to the verse which says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." [Ps. 37:4]

Right away I realized that the verse wasn't saying, "Make God happy and He will give you the stuff you want", which is honestly how I think most of us read that verse at first.

Instead, I started to see how this verse was simply saying: "If you make God your delight, then you will receive more of God as a reward."

In other words, "Is it your delight to know God more? Is the desire of your heart simply to know Him in a deeper way?" If so, then you're in luck! Because God's promise is to fulfill that desire and to show you more and more of Himself as you seek Him daily.

Suffering, then, becomes another opportunity to know God's heart. Blessings are also an opportunity to know something about God. Our joys reveal more of God's character, and our sadness points us to Him as well.

Too often, we become fixated on avoiding pain and maximizing our pleasure. But that's a very carnal way of living, and it reduces our experience of God to a simplistic paradigm which says: "If I'm blessed then God loves me and if I'm suffering then God is upset at me."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus is with us always, no matter what our experience is. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and he dances with us in our seasons of joy.

Jesus told us plainly: "In this world you will have trouble", and then He added, "But take heart, because I have overcome the world."

The troubles still come our way, but our gift is that we get to go through those hardships with Jesus alongside us.

"It rains on the unjust and the righteous as well," Jesus said. The difference for us is that we get to know Jesus better along the journey of life, whether in joy or in sorrow.

I hope that encourages you today.

If it does, please share this with your friends on Facebook or Twitter. There might be others who need to hear this blessing too!

Peace,
Keith

Learning To Abide

Fear, worry, and doubt are un-Christian practices.

How can I say this? Because Jesus says this.

Jesus tells us not to worry. If we ignore him and practice worrying, then we are disobedient to Jesus. 

Or, to put it another way, worry is a sin.

When we worry we are saying that we doubt that God is in control. We give power to our fear and we act as if God isn't big enough to handle our life.

Jesus also tells us not to be afraid. He tells us not to fear men, who can only destroy our body but not our soul. He even tells us not to fear Him. 

His Apostles remind us in the New Testament that perfect love casts out fear, and that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 

So, if we are ruled by our fears, we are not behaving like a Christian.

Doubt is a natural human emotion, just like fear and worry. But like those other emotions, doubt isn't something that a follower of Jesus can practice. 

If we are abiding in Christ, then we cannot doubt Him. If we go all in with Jesus, then that means we place all of our hope in Him, and if we do that we are not doubting, but trusting. 

Of course, none of us ever perfectly avoids these three things - fear, worry and doubt - but the point is that we do not practice these things. We don't allow fear, worry and doubt to remain. We cast those things out quickly and we refuse to be ruled by those because Jesus is our King and we are submitted to Him.

If we are abiding in Jesus, then we are practicing faith, hope and love, not fear worry and doubt.

Let's continue to walk in our new nature, which is Christ in us.

-kg

**

READ MORE:

THE SKY IS [NOT] FALLING>

FEARLESS>

WORRY NOT> 

You May Hate Yourself, But God Is Crazy In Love With You

You make His heart sing.
He can't stop thinking about you.
He throws back His head and He sings over you.

The voices of the angels ring in His ears night and day, but what He yearns for most desperately is to hear your voice calling out His name.

You think you're worthless, but He thinks you're worth dying for.

The value He has placed on you is greater than you can imagine.

He literally gave His life to be with you.

When He saw how much it would cost to make you His own He didn't blink an eye, He paid the ultimate price and now you are His.

Now nothing can ever separate you from His love.

He created Eternity so you could get to know Him better.



When God looks at you, He sees His beloved. He sees His child. He sees a face He cannot wait to kiss, and a hand He cannot wait to hold. 




His fondest desire is to be with you forever.

He has plans for you. Good plans. Fantastic dreams designed to fill your heart with joy and your eyes with wonder.

So, you might hate yourself, but God is crazy in love with you.

Let that love change your heart. Let His love transform you from within. 

Trust in Him. He wants nothing but the best for you.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit." - 1 Cor. 2:9-10

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Love Always Protects

“Love...always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” [1 Cor. 13:6]

In my ongoing debates with other Christians concerning the nonviolent, proactive agape of Jesus versus a more pro-violence and Nationalist viewpoint, the idea of protecting the innocent often arises.

I’ve already written one article addressing this, but to recap - anyone who kills to protect their family or friends is still only demonstrating the same kind of love that everyone else does. As Jesus puts it: “If you love only those who love you in return, what credit is that to you?”

Instead, Jesus calls Christians to go above and beyond this and to actually love our enemies.

I know it's a hard one to swallow, but Jesus has no commands for us about protecting others. [More on this in a moment].

So, what are we to do with a verse like 1 Cor. 13: 6 which says that “Love…always protects”? Doesn’t that prove that Jesus really does want us to protect the innocent? Well, for some the answer is an automatic “Yes!”, but let's ask a few questions first:

Do we see Jesus protecting the innocent? No, we don’t. 

Do we see Jesus urging us to protect the safety of others? No, we do not.

Do we see Paul, or any of the other Apostles, or the earliest Christians, protecting one another from danger or death? Again, the answer is no.

What, then, does Paul mean when he says that “Love…always protects?”

I think it depends on what you mean by “Protect”.  Usually, the Christians who debate this issue of justifiable force or redemptive violence translate “protecting others” as “using violence against the bad guys” and that most certainly is not what Paul means here.

But he also doesn’t mean “do nothing and sit back while people get brutalized” either.

Believe it or not, there is a middle ground between “capping the perps with your nine” and “dancing barefoot while wearing daisies in your hair.”

For those who seek to follow Jesus and to embody the practice of agape love, protection looks like stepping in front of the bullet, or inserting your body between the victim and the attacker. It means sacrificing yourself to save someone else.

I heard someone tell a story once that illustrated this kind of love perfectly.

Several years ago, my friend, [we’ll call him Joe], was visiting India as a young Christian. He wanted to save the world. He thought he could bring the Kingdom all by himself. One day he was walking in the streets of Delhi and he walked up on a circle of policemen beating an old man with their clubs. They stopped and looked at him for a moment. He was the only white man on the street. They waited to see what he would say, what he would do. Even the old man, trembling there on the street, looked up at him and waited to see what he would do next. In a moment of shameful indecision and impotence my friend, not knowing what else he could do, just kept on walking, and as he walked away he heard the beating continue.

When he got back to his room he wept and cried out to God to forgive him.

About five years later, this friend, “Joe”, was living in the home of a poor family in Santa Ana, California, as their guest. He wasn’t there to change the world. He just wanted to learn about their struggles, and to serve in any way he could. One day he heard shouting outside. One of the teenage boys from the family he was staying with was being beaten by a local gang. Immediately, he ran outside and pushed his way through the circle of bodies. When he saw his friend laying on the ground, face bloodied as he was repeatedly kicked and punched, this person didn’t hesitate; he fell on top of his friend and covered him with his own body. After just a few more punches, everything stopped. The gang leader told him to get out of the way. He refused. “You’re loco,” they told him. But he didn’t move. They eventually left.

Afterwards, my friend said he started thinking about why he had done that. The Lord showed him. “Your love compelled you,” he heard the Spirit whisper, and then his mind flashed back to that memory, years ago in India, when he had seen that old man being beaten and done nothing. He understood, at last, what the difference was. It was love. He didn’t need to think about what to do when his heart was filled with love.

As our hearts are filled more and more with the love of Christ, we also will respond as His love compels us. We will, like Jesus, lay down our lives for one another.

We will protect others, not with violence, but with sacrificial devotion.

“Greater love has no man than this: to lay down his life for a friend.” – Jesus

-kg

Unbalanced?

Anytime we speak about the extravagant and unending love of God for people, we must always remind ourselves – and one another – just how sinful and undeserving we are of such amazing love.

The danger, of course, is that we might fixate too much on God’s audacious love and not spend enough time meditating on our own worthlessness.

Several authors are guilty of this. For example, people like Philip Yancey, and Brennan Manning tend to go on and on about God’s great love for us, and even seem to emphasize our full acceptance of this love, without balancing these ideas with the truth [which is that we are slimy worms who could never deserve such unmerited grace and love].

For example, here’s what Yancey says about God’s grace:

“God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are.” 

“I would far rather convey grace than explain it.” 

Notice how he makes no mention of our sins? Hmm…

Now, look at what Manning says:

“God loves you exactly as you are, not as you should be, because none of us will ever be as we should be.”

Ok, he does mention our sins but he fails to emphasize how our sinfulness is repulsive to God and how our failures can be a barrier to God’s great love.

As bad as these may be, the worst offender of all is this guy Paul, the Apostle.

Notice what he says about God’s great love:

“I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” [Eph. 3:17-19]

Worse yet, Paul doesn’t follow up this thought about God’s awesome love with any verses about how much we don’t deserve that love. Shameful.

And it gets worse:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [Romans 8:35-39]

Here, Paul not only goes on and on about God’s miraculous and astounding love for us, he even tries to convince us that nothing can separate us from this great love. Really, Paul? Not even our slimy, undeserving sinfulness?

In another epistle, Paul drops casual references to God’s love for us and uses it as motivation for how we should love one another:

“Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” [Col. 3:12]

Of course, Paul even went so far as to write an entire chapter about love [see 1 Cor. 13] without ever mentioning how much none of us deserves God’s great love. Talk about a missed opportunity.

The other Apostles are no better. John, for example, who has the gall to call himself “the one the Lord loved” also talks about God’s love for us without the necessary caveats:

“God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” [1 John 4:16]

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! [1 John 3:1]

Again, all references to how much we don’t deserve God’s great love are "conveniently" omitted.

The dangerous thing here is that Christians who read this might actually start to forget their filthy sinfulness and begin to focus only on the goodness, and kindness, and graciousness of a God who loves them so much that He would rather die than live without them.

Just imagine what would happen if more and more Christians started to forget what horrible people they are? Sure, they might start to experience more joy in their lives, but they might also start to forget what shame and guilt feel like. 

And then what?

The more Christians start to become aware of God’s unmerited favor and His love that surpasses knowledge, the more they might also start telling others about it, too.

Do we really want to live in a world where the emphasis is on God’s continual, unending love for those who are made in His image? Are we prepared for the consequences of this unbalanced approach to the Gospel, or to life itself?

The implications are almost unbelievable.

Almost.

-kg

Contagious Love

DOING IT WRONG?

PREEMPTIVE LOVE AND PROACTIVE AGAPE

INTERVIEW: Brandon Chase and Keith Giles talk about "Love, Fear and Nonviolence"

Brandon Chase interviewed me on his Real Life Radio podcast. This is the raw video of the conversation we had together about the barriers that keep many Christians from fully embracing Jesus' message of radical love and nonviolence - Nationalism, Old Covenant Christianity, and Fear (which casts out Perfect Love).

LOVE, HATE AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Believe it or not, some Christians keep a list of people who can be righteously hated and even put to death, in spite of Jesus’ commands to love our enemies and bless those who hate us.

Usually those who fall into this exceptional category are criminals, terrorists, enemies of the state, homosexuals, and abortionists.

Frankly, many Christians have their own private list of who can be/should be put to death. It might be a an ex-spouse, a person who abused them in the past, a drunk driver who took away their loved one, or the umpire who blew the call that ended their team’s chances at a national championship.

It should be obvious to anyone who knows the Gospel of Christ that there are no exemptions when it comes to the commands to love our enemies, bless those who hate us, and do good to those who seek to harm us. None whatsoever.

That means God loves all the same people that you really hate. He loves those people you wish were dead. He loves those people that hurt you, and ripped you off. He loves everyone in prison, no matter what they did to get there. He loves the people who got away with murder, and the people who helped them get away with it.

Now, that doesn’t mean that God loves what they did, or what they do. Far from it. In fact, it’s because he “so loved the world” that he sent Jesus in the first place. Because he saw how horrific we all were without His love, and he sent Jesus to show us what it really looks like – and feels like – to receive that love. He sent Jesus to transform us through His love, and to rescue us from the penalty of a life without His love.

This means that those terrorists you’d like to see burned alive are within reach of God’s grace. Why destroy them before they have an opportunity to know Christ who can transform their hearts?

It reminds me of Jesus’ own disciples who asked “Shall we call down fire from heaven to destroy them?” in reference to a Samaritan village that refused to have Jesus travel through it on his way to Jerusalem. The response Jesus gave to these disciples is the same as what he would say to Christians today who yearn to rain down destruction on anyone: “You do not know what kind of Spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” (John 9:54-56)

Loving our enemies is hard, of course. Our old nature is quick to crave violence and retribution. But Jesus has given us a new nature and a new spirit.

If we really hope to love our enemies, we have to first admit that we do not have access to this kind of love. This sort of unconditional love is just not in us by nature. The closest we can ever come is the love a parent has for a child. But even that example (as profound as it may be) falls short of the extravagant love that God wants to fill us with.

God’s love just “is”. It’s not dependent upon anything the person does, or does not do. And that’s why Jesus can tell us that, if we are abiding in Him, and if He is alive in us, then we will be connected to the constant, eternal flow of Divine Love that flows from the heart of the Trinity and outward into every corner of the Universe. We become conduits of His endless love and therefore everyone around us becomes illuminated in the light of His unconditional love.

And if we are indeed carriers of Christ-like love, then we cannot shoot anyone in the face. We cannot even wish that anyone were dead. We cannot cheer when someone receives the harsh judgment we believe they deserve.

Even God doesn’t take pleasure in the death of the wicked.

“As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” (Ezekiel 33:11)

Jesus leaves us no wiggle room here. He loves everyone, and He commands us to love everyone as well.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-48)

Those people you hate? God loves them and He commands you to love them, too.

To be a follower of Jesus is to obey His commands. If we struggle with those commands, we must throw ourselves at His feet and beg Him for the grace to love as He loves, forgive as He forgives, and serve others as He serves us.

Love is our tattoo. Love is our song. Love is how Jesus knows that we belong to Him.

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

-kg