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Thought for the Week: Our Love Is Not Enough
Tabloid Title #1:
God doesn’t want to be #1 in our lives! Pretty tabloidy, right? Maybe not quite up there with “Space Aliens Greet President!” But the thing is, it’s true. God doesn’t want to be #1. He wants to be the only one. That’s why he created us. Sure, like polar bears in the desert, we might find a way to survive for a while. But that amounts to living an artificial life, one we weren’t made for. Are you ready for an even bigger shocker?
Tabloid title #2:
God wants us to “hate” everyone but him! What?! Hey, don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger. Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). Jesus often used hyperbole (exaggeration), a common rabbinical technique for emphasizing points, and here he did just that. So it would be accurate to say he meant “hate” in contrast to our love for God. But wait, here’s another shocker.
Tabloid title #3:
God created us to love only him! What? The problem is, English has just one word for love (“I love my kids,” “I love pepperoni pizza”), but the New Testament Greek has at least four. So when (after telling us to hate our spouses and children), Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he’s using the Greek word agape. Which is the only form of love that’s divine in origin. It’s the same kind of love we’re told God has for us (“For God so loved the world…”). Yes, there are other forms of love (sensual, familial, friendship), but all of them are conditional and purely human in origin. And none of them is powerful enough to restore our broken world.
Our Love Is Not Enough
So when Jesus tells us to hate the people we care most about, even ourselves, he’s telling us to stop believing our half-baked human love is enough. Not until God is our everything are we suitably transformed for him to begin restoring the world through us. Only then is our love for those whom Jesus told us to “hate” transformed into selfless, healing agape love.
Fellow polar bears: It’s time leave the desert. Time to stop living on cactus and serving cactus to others. It’s time to head north, to the place we were made for. Because only when God is our only love…
Will our love be enough.
Mitch, with all due respect, I am hoping that your post does not in the minds of immaturity initiate hatred.
We also have to remember we were, like Jesus, once a child growing in knowledge. So when later He says to Love your enemy, He had grown in a deeper understanding guided by his Father’s knowledge, educated to understand in a psychological way when you hate your brother, you are in effect hating yourself. To experience psychological pain is to have a deep understand of hate and ones spiritual awareness and connection
When God’s use of the word hate is expressed, one need to look at the word in the context in which it was use in the statement. Luke 14:26- He said, “IF ANYONE COME TO ME, and does not hate…” Jesus is a man of his word and speaks truth. Therefore, he was right in saying what he did, as he was not going to tell a lie on anyone’s behalf or participate in anyone’s wrong doing.
Further, when Jesus was speaking in the temple (I believe), and one of his disciples interrupted him to tell him his brothers were outside waiting He said, “These are my brothers who do the will of my Father.”
Col 3:19 Husbands are told to continue loving your wife. This does not mean if either party is doing wrong, you must continue to side with them. As it is later said, “each one will be judge for his own deeds.” Eze 18:20
1John 5:3 “For this is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments, and yet his commandments are not burdensome. ”
Times have changed, but the words of Jehovah have not changed. Vengeances is his to vindicate the righteous in due time. Lies, secrets and deception will be revealed, but lovers of truth MUST exercise patience.
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