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Love: What You Have Been Calling Love
There is a specific kind of love we have all been trained to give, and it has almost nothing to do with the love the Bible describes.
We love people who love us back. We love people we agree with. We love people who make us feel good about ourselves. We love people who are useful to us, or who we are hoping will be. We love people who are similar to us.
Almost all of that is easy. Almost all of that is what everyone does. And Jesus, when he taught about love, went out of his way to say that this kind of love is not what he was talking about.
This week's theme: Love.
Today, what we have been calling love, and why the Bible has a different word for the real thing.
Read what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.
"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?" - Matthew 5:46-47
That is Jesus, being unusually blunt.
He is saying that most of what we call love is just reciprocity. Warm feelings toward people who are warm toward us. Anyone can do that. The tax collectors could do that. The pagans could do that. It requires nothing spiritual. It is just human nature.
The love Jesus is calling us to is different. He is calling us to love the ones who do not love us back. The ones who annoy us. The ones we disagree with. The ones who cost us more than they give us. The ones who cannot repay us in any way.
That kind of love is not natural. It is supernatural. It requires the resources of God flowing through you, because you do not have that kind of love in yourself.
Which is why so many of us have been quietly failing at the love thing while thinking we were doing well.
We have been loving the people we always would have loved. Family. Friends. The nice people at church. The colleagues we get on with. And we have been calling that Christian love. But by Jesus's standard, that is not the Christian bit. That is just the human bit.
The Christian bit is loving the person you had every human reason not to. The relative who let you down. The colleague who took the credit. The friend who quietly stopped calling. The neighbour whose politics offend you. The stranger who was rude to you in the shop.
That is where the real spiritual work happens. Not in the love that came naturally. In the love that had to be summoned, from a source deeper than your own preferences.
Here is the hard news. If your love has been staying inside the boundaries of the people who love you back, you have not really been practising Christian love. You have been practising social preference. There is a difference.
The invitation is small. Pick one person outside your comfort circle, and love them today. Not big. Not showy. Just one small act toward someone your natural preference would not choose. That is where the muscle actually builds.
YOUR ONE THING FOR TODAY
Pick one person you would not normally love. The awkward colleague. The relative you avoid. The neighbour you find difficult. Do one small loving thing toward them today. Even a text. Even a prayer. Even a decision to think of them more generously.
A PRAYER FOR TODAY
Father, forgive me for calling my preferences love. Show me one person outside my comfort circle to love this week. Give me the supernatural love I do not have on my own. Amen.
OVER TO YOU
Who is one person outside your comfort circle you could love today? A first name, or a word. Every reply held with care.
God bless you, my friend.
The LowKey Christian
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