The Lover of the unlovable
There has been a truth that God has been bringing me back to over and over in the course of this past year, and it's simple:
Yes, them.
Let me explain.
Sometimes I wonder why it is that we who are in Christ struggle to feel God's love for us...
Could it be in part because we are not willing to be His hands and feet of love to the unlovable?
In motherhood, I have tasted God's love in laying down my sleep, my own nourishment, my own emotional stability, and almost every other basic need, for the needs of a baby.
Could it be that in laying down our lives for the people we don't want to love, we will discover more depths to God's love than we ever dreamed possible?
It is our human tendency to love to a limit, but no farther.
Believe me, motherhood helps me discover my own limits fast.
But what if God's desire were to give us a taste of the limitlessness of His love by calling us beyond our comfort zones and set boundaries?
What if we will only find out just how amazing His love is by letting Him love the unlovable through us?
This is difficult to write, but at the same time, I feel the excitement of knowing that I have not yet found out just how deep, how wide, how long, and how high His love might yet be.
...
I'm going to lay this out there plainly so that you don't miss it:
There is no individual that God does not love.
No matter how weird or different they are from you.
No matter how self-righteous they may be.
No matter what background they come from.
No matter what beliefs they have.
No matter how much they have hurt you.
No matter how wicked they are.
No matter how bent on going to hell they may be.
No matter how much they may love their sin.
No matter who they are.
(If you don't believe me, read John 3:16 and 1 John 4:10 and ask God who He was talking about.)
Look around you. What kind of people tend to put you off? What kind of people make you feel overwhelmed? What kind of people make you feel like hiding in a dark corner? What kind of people bring out the worst in you?
That person who gets on your nerves.
That person who is too hard to get to know.
That person who seems to want to take more from you than they are willing to give.
That person who has so many needs that you know you really couldn't even begin to meet them.
That person who nobody sees or cares about.
That person who takes every opportunity to say something to hurt you.
That person who is against you.
That person who stands for a different cause than you do.
That person who is proud of their sin.
That person who is decidedly anti-God.
Here is my point:
If God puts them in front of you, you might be His only means for revealing His love to them.
And if you, as I have, respond with, "not them, Lord," perhaps you haven't yet seen that God's love really has no limit and there is more of Him that you do not yet know.
We need to remember that, were it not for the grace of God, we would be one of them too...
"...You were his enemies, separated from Him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body...." (Colossians 1:21-22a.)
...
".... Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink....'" (John 7:37)
Imagine Him standing up amid the people that came to your mind as you read the list above, crying out this very same thing.
"Anyone, Lord?" You might say, "Can't you put some limits on that? That person over there certainly doesn't deserve it."
But then and there, Jesus would lovingly point at you. "Didn't you come and drink? Didn't you believe? Did you forget what I have done for you?"
In this passage, He continues with this: "'He who believes in Me... out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" (John 7:38)
You came to Jesus to drink, you stood in the river of His love and drank deeply, and now, He turns you into a conduit through whom His living water can flow onto others.
That's why, if anyone crosses your pathway, His love should be what they get from you.
Are you stopping the flow of His love?
If you walked up to a river, you wouldn't hear the river telling you what kind of person could step into it and drink deeply. The river flows freely, and whoever decides to stop by and drink, gets however much they want.
If they step into it, they for sure will get wet. Guaranteed.
What if every person that stepped into our lives got drenched with the love of God?
What if the river of His love defined everything we did, every word spoken, every response, every thought, every single encounter with another human being?
....
"Well, Sandie," you might be asking, "what stops His love from flowing through me?"
I'm going to answer by telling you what God pointed out in me.
It's pride. Plain and simple.
I choose my own thoughts about people instead of God's.
I think I have the right to decide how involved I will be in other peoples' lives.
I think I can be the hands and feet of Jesus to whoever I want and however I want.
I think I don't have to consider those I haven't chosen to love, instead of being available for whoever He wants to love through me.
I think I can define what's important to do and what's not.
And this, my friends, explains why we don't feel God's love.
Oh, His love is there. It always was there, flowing freely like a rushing river, but we have stepped out of the current and tried to use our own resources to love people.
And it isn't working.
Because real love -God's love- will baffle people into silent awe.
God's love will keep people coming back for more.
God's love will help them see that it's coming from Him and not you.
God's love never runs out.
...
"So, what do I do?" You might be wondering.
Humble yourself, my dear friend.
Step back into the current of His love, acknowledging your love was never sufficient.
Open up your hands and say, "Lord, whatever you want to do with me, my answer is yes. Here I am. Send me. Wherever, to whomever, however."
Does that scare you?
Jesus said this in John 12:26:
"'If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there my servant will be also....'"
Jesus will never lead you to where He Himself is not going.
Do you want to be with Him? Then you must follow Him.
And following Him means forsaking your own agenda.
Jesus always goes lower than expected.
Jesus is the One who washed His betrayer's feet.
Where my pride would hurt to go, He goes gladly.
Will I follow? Will you?
In doing so, my pride will be silenced, and His life will be free to flow in and through me.
...
Oh, Jesus, I know that your love is limitless, but I have yet to experience what that means fully.
You have called us to serve the least of these -the ones the rest of the world would never serve or love with their lives.
You have called us to love even Your worst enemies.
If we were looking, we would find You already there, eyes on them, longing for some way to show them that You do indeed love them.
It's important to You that they know that Your love is meant for them, too.
Your eyes search for one who is willing, ready to be Your hands and feet.
Here I am, Lord. Send me.
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