COLUMN: Not so simple
Skye Pournazari
Pastor Laura Rand Maryville Church of Nazarene
Jesus says we are to love him and to love others. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But loving others is not simple. 1 Corinthians 16:14 says, “Let everything you do be done in love (true love to God and man as inspired by God’s love for us).” Loving God and loving others is not comparable to how we love pizza. It is not so simple.
We begin with how God loves us. John 3:16 says it simply, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” What a tremendous love. The Greek word for this kind of Love is “Agape.” The best definition for agape I have found is from Rick Renner, “God loved man when he was still lost in sin with no ability to love God back. God simply loved mankind without any thought or expectation of receiving love in return.” (Renner, Sparkling Gems, 1993)
Simply put, apart from God, we got ourselves into a heck of a mess. We were property of Satan. And yet, God in his love (agape), he came off the throne, gave his life for ours, so we could be saved to eternity with him and that our lives would be restored into the image of Christ. Wow! That is amazingly simple, in a not so simple way.
And now, he commands us to love others. Sounds simple, yet not really. How do we love others? 1 John 3:16 says simply, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Wow, not so simple. We are not to love others with our love, but rather the love that Christ loves us with. Simple, right? Probably not.
What keeps us from loving like Christ? It is a “Me” centered attitude. We might call it pride. Ouch! Most arguments and divisions are caused because we insist on being right. But in the Kingdom of God, it is not about being right, but honoring others, serving, demonstrating patience, enduring alongside and seeing value in others. We always have reasons to not lay down our lives, such as anger, bitterness, offense, unforgiveness or judgment. Loving others is not simple, because it requires us to live for Christ rather than ourselves. Definitely, not simple. But when we do love with the love of Jesus, his love through us heals brokenness, transforms lives and covers a multitude of sins.
And so, let us receive the free gift of love from Jesus and may we be transformed by his love into Christ’s image. But here is the big question, “Who is Jesus asking you to love today?” Will you?
