Tag Archives: love

Hate is Blind

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They say “Love is blind” but John says they got it wrong.  Hate is blind.  Here it is:

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.  Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.  (1 John 2:9-11)

Love, as Jesus taught it, is a radical choice to put aside what I want so I can take care of what you need.  Hate is the opposite:  taking care of what I want instead of ministering to what you need.  Thus, the default attitude of the world – take care of number 1, in effect is hate.

The interesting thing, is that John says people hate  because they have been blinded by “the darkness.”  The darkness, in John’s words, is the attitude of people in the world who have not received the Holy Spirit.  They live in the darkness and are blinded by it.

Jesus, on the other hand, John says, is the Source of “Light.”

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. (John 1:4-5)

John’s logic (and Jesus’ “logos”) leads us to this conclusion:  If we understood reality the way Jesus does, if we had not been blinded by the ways of the world, we would naturally love.  Self-sacrificial love, Jesus’ kind of love, would make more sense to us than selfishness or hate.   Trouble is, people don’t like to change.  Radical, “upside down,” ideas are threatening to our comfortable rhythms as we live in the “same-old same-old.”    That’s why Jesus said:

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.   (John 3:19)

This is a tough teaching.  Tough, but true.  How is it with you?

The Light You Shine

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John wrote in a confusing way about an “old command” that is a “new command.”  (For more about that, see: John vs. John Lennon)  The “old command” (Love your neighbor) is made new, by Jesus redefining what love is.  Jesus’ kind of love, the “new command” He gave, is simple to describe but impossible to do.  Love, He taught, is a choice to put aside what I want in order to minister to what you need.   Sounds simple, but it is impossible on our own, because we are wired by our experiences in this world to “take care of number one” as a number one priority.  Jesus’ kind of love doesn’t make sense in our world; it only makes sense when you see the world through His lenses, His “logos.”  That Greek word, weakly translated in English as “word,” really goes way deeper.  It describes a whole mindset and understanding of reality.

When you read a book, and are observed doing so by your dog, your “logos” of what you are doing is very different from your dog’s “logos” of what is happening.  See that?

Jesus’ commands fit beautifully when you understand His “logos.”  In a very real sense, His commands are a part of His way of seeing reality.  That is why, in 1 John 2:7, John wrote, “This old command is the message (that’s the word, “logos”) you have heard.”

When you live in Jesus’ logos, His kind of love emerges in what you do, not from self-effort but from the Holy Spirit, living within you.   (See: Who Can Fix It?)  That is why John wrote about this “new command”:

…its truth is seen in him (Jesus) and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.  (1 John 2:8)

John said that the light of Jesus shines in those who have come to Him by faith.  Already.

You are probably thinking, “If this means I must perfectly resemble Jesus in every way, I’m so far off that mark it’s hopeless…”  Don’t freak out.  Instead, look carefully at the verbs in verse 8 above:

… its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness  is passing and the true light is already shining.  (1 John 2:8)

When someone surrenders to Jesus by faith, receiving His gift of forgiveness and fellowship with God, the Holy Spirit begins to live within his or her soul, as God always intended.  (See: Who Can Fix It?)  In John’s words, “the true light is already shining.”  However, that person is still profoundly shaped by all of life’s experiences and illusions.  Those habits, personality traits and outright addictions don’t simply vanish.  John says “the darkness is passing.”  

Picture a bright light shining in a room full of smoke so thick you can hardly see it.  A window is raised for fresh air to blow through the room.  The smoke is passing, but the light is already shining.

Jesus shines through the life of those who have fully trusted Him.  They are not perfect; they may not even be aware of how He is doing so at any one moment.  However, “the truth is seen,” John says, in Jesus and in you, too.    That’s how we know we know Jesus.  That’s how they know, too.

John vs. John Lennon

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Last time we got together, I made this statement:  “God loves us so He can love others through us.   That’s His purpose.”  And I said,” Jesus gave us many commands.  He summarized them in one command: “Love one another.” (See “The Acid Test”)

Did you buy that?  Is that true?  If it is, does that mean the Beatles were right when they sang:

“It’s easy…   All you need is love… (ya ta da da da…)  Love is all you need…”  

And if you think John the Apostle and John Lennon were on the same page, think again.  There is a vast difference between the feel-good and be-nice kind of love behind the Beatles’ lyric (and most other pop songs) and what  Jesus commanded us to practice.  Jesus’ idea of love put a new, radical twist on an old command.  That’s why John wrote:

Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.  (1 John 2:7-8 )

The old command, the one “you have had since the beginning,” came right out of the earliest writings of the Old Testament: “… love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18b).   But this old command was made new, radically new, when explained and demonstrated by Jesus.    John says you can see that new understanding, that new truth in Jesus.  How?

Jesus made “love your neighbor as yourself” new by comparing it to and combining it with  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength,” and declaring these intertwined commands to be the foundation of all the teachings of the Bible.

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  (Matthew 22:40)

But Jesus also made this old command new by His teaching and His example.  Love, He taught, is a choice to put aside what I want in order to minister to what you need.    A simple example might be for me to love you, by setting aside my desire to express anger and frustration, so that I can give you the opportunity to be understood.   Simple, but not so simple, right?   Jesus taught the most extreme example of that kind of love:

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  (John 15:13)

This new, radical form of love, is not the sappy idea the Beatles were singing about.   It is not “easy,” as they sang.   This new understanding of love was demonstrated most fully in Jesus’ choice to endure a bloody, violent death, so that you and I could live!   

But what does John mean when he says that “its truth is seen in Him and you“?   Chew on that.  See if you can figure it out and we’ll take it up next time.

The Acid Test

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Hurricane Sandy left chaos, confusion, darkness and despair in her wake.  In the midst of those dark circumstances, Salem Church, (http://salemchurchnyc.org) on Staten Island,  shined in bright contrast.  Relief, rescue and reconstruction efforts poured out into the community (and continue to do so today) as they put hands, backs and feet to their informal church slogan: “We’re going to love on people until they ask us why.”  They pass the acid test.  They get it.  Get what?  Get this:

God loves us so He can love others through us.   That’s His purpose.  Jesus lived that and taught that:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  (John 15:9 a)

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21)

When we receive God’s love, He changes us and then loves others through us.  As we extend His love to others, the purpose of God’s love to us is accomplished.  In the words of John, God’s love is made complete.

But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.  (1 John 2:5a)

When you send a text, your purpose in sending it is not made complete until the text is received and read.  God’s love to us is not made complete until we “obey His Word” by extending His love to others.  Jesus gave us many commands.  He summarized them in one command: “Love one another.”  He said:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35 )

Jesus said that our love for one another would be the acid test for the genuineness of our belief in Him.  He said, all men would know.  John says, we can know, too:

But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:  Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:5-6 )

It’s the acid test.

On the Other Hand, God Really Is Angry

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Worker termite

Worker termite (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

According to the termite guy, there is only one colony of those nasty things that exists in my town, but it was centered right under my house. When he heard my address, he started making pessimistic noises. I hate that, when some repair guy takes his hat off, rubs his forehead and says, “Oh man…. Oh man…”

I looked under the porch of my house one day, shone a light in under there, and discovered that termites were tearing my house down and eating it! I asked them nicely to knock it off, but they ignored me. I sprayed them with water, and then cans of nasty aerosol stuff I had sitting around. It made sitting on the porch pretty unpleasant, but it didn’t faze those termites a bit. They didn’t even notice. They just kept on working in an organized way, with whole work teams (tiny little hard hats and lunch boxes…), harvesting my home!

Once I knew they were down there, it seemed like, no matter what I was doing, I could hear them, chomping and chewing, destroying the place. That house wasn’t the nicest one in the neighborhood, but I was pretty attached to it and all. It didn’t take long before I’d had enough. It may have seemed unreasonable to the termites, but eventually they experienced my wrath. I called in the termite guy and he knew what to do. He had a special suit, some big drills and special squirtem stuff. He wasn’t fooling around.

God’s anger is partly about trying to keep us safe (See: Why Does God Seem so Angry?). But there is another side to God’s wrath, the part where He zips up His hazmat suit, adjusts His goggles and becomes the “Termite Guy.” When God cannot get us to stop wrecking His garden, destroying His home, so to speak, eventually He puts a stop to it. He has been doing this in measured ways since the beginning – always with warnings, so folks have a chance to turn around. But eventually, He will clean house for good. You have to understand that final day is coming; it may seem unreasonable, but it’s not pretend. Jesus warned His disciples that God’s wrath would be terrifying (See: Matthew 24). But He offered a way out, for anyone who would believe in Him.

God made up a story to try to explain His wrath and the “why” of it. It’s found in the 5th chapter of Isaiah. Read the whole thing if you can. I’ll spend more than one post on it. But start with this: Listen to God as He pours out His heart…

The Song of the Vineyard

I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones
and planted it with the choicest vines.
He built a watchtower in it
and cut out a winepress as well.
Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,
but it yielded only bad fruit.
“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard
than I have done for it?
When I looked for good grapes,
why did it yield only bad?
Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland,
neither pruned nor cultivated,
and briers and thorns will grow there.
I will command the clouds
not to rain on it.”
The vineyard of the Lord Almighty
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are the garden of his delight.
And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed;
for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.
Isaiah 5:1-7 (NIV)

The Gift

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A friend told me of an elderly woman who spoke a brief but powerful message at his church.  She stood at the pulpit and said, “I would like to read a verse in the Bible you have probably never heard –  It’s John 3:16.”  Everyone laughed, since that verse is one of the most well known verses in Scripture.  Sunday school children can rattle it off by memory with lighting speed.   The people thought, “She’s joking; John 3:16 is the verse held up behind the goalposts, for heaven’s sake; of course we’ve heard it.”  Undeterred, the woman began to read: “For God so loved the world, that He gave…”  But at that point in her reading, her throat became constricted, there was a catch in her voice, and she had to stop to pull herself together.  She inhaled that jerky breath of intense sorrow.  Her eyes rimmed red.  She started again: “For God so loved the world that He….  (sob)…   that He gave…   (silent pause, clearing of throat)…  He gave His one and only Son…”   At that point she could not go on.  Her chest was heaving as she tried to take control of her emotions.  A tear snaked its way down her cheek.  She leaned over and fiercely glared at the text in the Bible, unsuccessfully willing herself to stop weeping.  And then, one by one, people in the congregation began to weep with her.  They began to “hear” this verse and to understand the profound generosity and the horrible cost represented by those simple words: “He gave His one and only Son.”  Soon the whole congregation was gripped by the shocking enormity  conveyed in that verse.  Tears flowed, noses were blown.   The old woman just waited.  And then, she closed her Bible and sat back down.  They had “heard” it.

How can God be loving and forgiving and at the same time be perfectly just?  How can He forgive our sins without also demanding the just punishment for them?  He gradually revealed to Isaiah what He would do to reconcile the apparent conflict between perfect love and perfect justice.  He told Isaiah:

“…For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given…” (Isaiah 9:6a)

The word, given, means given over.  Like a mother who stands by the bus and gives her son over to basic training.   In the marriage ceremony, the pastor asks, “Who gives this woman…”   The parents let go of their child and give her over.   Young women make the heroic choice to bear a child, and then, knowing their own inability to provide for that child, give him over for adoption.   Gifts, in the truest sense, have no strings.  They are given over, forever.  In giving His Son, God takes His hands off, removes His shield of protection.  He gives Jesus – to us.  

God gave Jesus over to whatever would happen to Him in this world.  You know what happened.  In that Gift, God accomplished love and justice.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:5-6)