February 2014
“If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us” (completed) I John 4:12
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin.” I John 1:7
“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light…” I John 2:10
“Don’t just pretend that you love others, really love them….Love each other with brotherly affection and take delight in honoring each other.” Romans 12:9-10
Jesus told us what is truth. He is full of love, and this love is
life. His life-giving love is the most important thing, and we are to
treat it as most important. Moreover, if we are in reality obeying and
serving God, we are to be like Jesus and be filled with this genuine love.
One would assume then, Christian churches would treat teaching about and
practicing real love as being at the top of their priority lists in sermons,
Bible studies, relationship patterns among church goers, and so forth.
Although there are exceptions, generally speaking love has been glossed
over, not taught in detail about peoples’ relationships, and kept quite a
bit at the bottom of the priority ladder. Churches focus mostly on the
vertical relationship, not the horizontal.. Oftentimes now days, churchgoers
hardly know each other and have no plans or interests in knowing each other
on a personal level. People don’t act very loving because they have
not been taught how important it is, and how to be loving interpersonally in
any detail. Also, they often do not have good, loving role models
around them. They have little or no idea how to nurture someone else, or why
anybody needs nurturing. Human needs should be met by God, not them.
And, they do not know the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES of the lack of
wholesome, loving, nurturing relationships.
Leaving out love in environments – between people – is never good.
People are not uplifted deep inside and can be brought quite low in how they
feel about themselves, the others, and life. As time goes on in
love-deprived environments, they feel just dead and cold inside, and
disgruntled or downright angry. They become hard hearted. They
may hide their coldness underneath an exterior of enlivened joviality,
But, the poverty of love in their lives can spill out at home in grumpiness
or outright abuse to family members, or towards animals in so many ways.
Such cold, harmful patterns can go on, generation after generation, from
mild to dangerously pathological.
Abuse on this planet is so horrendously pervasive towards humans and
animals. Isn’t it time for the church leaders, whoever and wherever
they are, to examine who they are serving and why. If they are really
serving Jesus, they will be putting efforts to teach His love very high
priority. If they are not putting love high priority, what they are
doing can contribute to UNINTENDED CONSEQUENES, which include hard
heartedness, alienation, loneliness, lack of spiritual growth, and all sorts
of mild and/or extreme abuse to people and animals. Lots of sin. Not what
the church leaders want, or intend, I’m sure!!
People who have grown up lacking wholesome, secure parental love and care
end up damaged in some way or another. They are not simply sinners who
are being ornery and insisting upon sinning because they feel like it.
They are genuinely hampered in their thinking minds, in their emotional
minds, in their habit patterns, and in their life skills. They not
only need correction, they need a lot of tender loving care from honest
people. Their hurts are real hurts, often incredibly deep. They
need compassion, empathy, and understanding, and NOT merely to be told what
sinners they are (endlessly).
So often, the church tells people who are needy or having problems that if
they repent, the Holy Spirit will fill their needs. They will be fine.
I’m sure not going to decide when, where, and how the Holy Spirit acts, but
nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are supposed to take the “lazy way”
and expect the Holy Spirit to do all the loving and caring NO!
The Bible mandates that we humans have a definite role with other humans
(and the animals, too, in my opinion), We are supposed to be like
Jesus. We are supposed to be embodiments of His life-giving love, in
integrity and warmth, and we are to attend to the details of being somebody
to someone else.
My favorite kind of love is when someone loves me, not because someone told
them they must, but because, for some crazy reason, they fine me lovable and
likeable. Jesus has been said to love people because He found them so
lovable. If I love someone, I find that I want to be with that person
or animal. I want to be close, and I do miss them when I cannot have
times with them. I want to know them and I am interested in their
lives. I want to help them any way I can. How can I believe
people in churches love me when they show no interest in getting to know me?
I remember Ceil, a tall soprano who sang beautiful solos in so many
churches, strictly on a volunteer basis. Ceil told me, years ago, that
people in churches were often rude to her. She said “Christ isn’t in
the churches.”
Isn’t it time to take a sober look and assess what is really going on?
Real love, Christ’s love, is so critically needed all over this wounded
planet.
Where are those who will really stand up for love? For all
sentient beings, humans included.
Copyright 2014 The Caring Heart
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