"When you withhold love to make someone stop sinning, they don't learn to hate sin; they learn to distrust love." —my friend Jen's Facebook status last night
Few things make me sadder than when people reject their friends because they disapprove of their friends' choices. If your love cannot withstand your friend's failure (or growth), it isn't love. Jesus broke bread with the man who had sold him to murderers. He also entrusted the care of his people to someone who had pretended not to know him. And some of his closest companions were prostitutes.
And raise your hand if being rejected by someone you love has ever made you want to change the way you live your life. Raise your hand if being rejected by someone you love has made you reticent in opening yourself to love, even (especially) God's love?
That's what I thought.
Sermon over.
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6 comments:
I've been reading I John and am intrigued by the following:
"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."
I need to take hold of this. To fully understand what it is to be loved by God, to truly love others (even those who are so different that I find them mildly irritating) and somehow become complete.
Dude! See now, this is why you should preach sermons!
S: I always say I never want to be in a situation in which it's not okay for me to love absolutely anyone with any kind of baggage. Because if someone is too dirty or wrong to be loved and embraced, no one really can be.
T: Hopefully I will some day. You'll be the first to know when it happens. (I hope no one minds if the sermon is only five minutes long and half of it is contemplative silence.)
maybe u should preach it to pastors first...
Ah, wow, Amy. That quote at the beginning, and this whole post really, just totally knocked me out today.
I agree with anonymous... preach this to pastors and maybe it'll get to the rest of the people too. :)
Best post ever.
Hey, thanks, Rachel! I'm glad you feel me. This is a peeve that I pet more than most. In my subculture, everybody has to be so fake and plastic to keep their friends. It's maddening! I hate plastic!
If it makes you feel better, anonymous, I get to preach this to pastors all the time, being a seminary graduate in a town with about 100 evangelical churches, about half of the pastors of which were my classmates at some point. I use my connections as best I can.
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