Jesus said, “For
if you love only those who love you, what reward will you get? Don’t even
tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,
what is exceptional about that? Don’t even non-Jewish people do the same?”
—
Matthew 5:46-47
(USC)
Love is
a verb.
We cannot say we love. We must do it. Love only
has value from the viewpoint of the other’s viewpoint. Another person is not
our neighbour; we are theirs! Love begins with us. And, so far as the Lord
Jesus is concerned, best we never insist our neighbour love us.
The obligation of
love as an enunciation of obedience is to be
the neighbour.
***
Discipleship’s
challenge pivots at the hinge called love. First, who is able to love the Lord God so fully they are obedient before
the inevitable shreds of doubt dilute conviction and hence make it impossible
for faith’s expression? Second, when we have obeyed the Lord God without a nanosecond of hesitation, we have the
impetus for love that knows no bounds – we love not only those who love us and
our brothers and sisters, we love with the radical Kingdom love of God.
Such love as Christ’s
obedience on the cross knew not a moment’s doubt in the act of it. Jesus may
have prayed for the chalice to pass from him, but he had no thought to disobey
the Lord God’s will.
To love without
doubt is to experience the love of God. We might think we know all about the
love of God, but what I’m talking about is to experience love as God might
experience it.
There is an outcome
to us in this kind of love.
We begin to be
genuinely transformed spiritually in the act of loving an enemy or someone we
find it hard to love. God’s Spirit begins to do business in us; we are in
receipt of something that changes us. Its impact is never insignificant.
The trouble is we
don’t go far enough. We insist in swinging with the pendulum of disobedience,
which is to fluctuate between reflection and doubt. We find it safest (and
best?) to stay in a brooding bitterness that forever sees them as the alien and
not the neighbour who’s loved by God. We decide neighbourliness is their
obligation when Jesus clearly puts the ball in our court.
***
Will we love when we
can? We will when we obey without thought; when we trust without hesitation.
Love constructs no
barrier, leaves no stone unturned, and insists on being the neighbour. Love wins
when we do what’s risky and we cross the road to help the stranger in distress.
***
QUESTIONS in REVIEW:
1. Think of a time when you took
that risk and became the neighbour to a stranger. What was God’s impact on you
in that obedience?
2. Reflect over a time when you
hesitated and doubted when prompted to love. How were you left feeling?
© 2015 S. J. Wickham.
Note: USC version is Under the Southern Cross, The New Testament in Australian English
(2014). This translation was painstakingly developed by Dr. Richard Moore, a NT
Greek scholar, over nearly thirty years.
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