Love, The Main Event

Back in the mid-nineties, there was a popular Christian radio program that aired during drive time in the DC area. I can remember the host categorizing different Christian denominations into neat little packages - saved, not-saved, possibly saved but living in error. If your denomination didn't meet all of his criteria for the first category, well...too bad for you. By his analysis, Baptists and conservative Presbyterians were good, but Catholics and Pentecostals fell into either the second or third category. I didn't even want to know what he would have said about my denomination, which at the time was the Episcopal Church. His pronouncements never sat well with me, but I was a young Christian, struggling with doubt, and I wanted to be sure I had my feet in the right camp.

During that same period, a woman from my work-place Bible study group shared that she had been sitting next to someone on a flight who grilled her the entire time about how she got saved. She'd grown up in a Christian home and couldn't pinpoint a specific moment, but her faith was real. This gentleman wouldn't give up. He insisted that if she couldn't share a testimony about the exact moment she was saved, then she couldn't really be a Christian.

It took me some years to figure out exactly why these things rubbed me the wrong way, especially as I'm sure that in both examples these Christians meant well. But here's the problem...put simply, it is not our job to decide who is in and who is out. We have one job, and that's not it. And thank goodness for that!

But aren't there people out there who are in error? Sure. But I guarantee I don't have my theology 100% correct and neither do you. I am naturally suspicious of anyone who insists they have it all figured out. On some level, we need to be content with not having all the answers. God's purposes are much greater than what our minds can fathom.

Friends, it's not about checking boxes. To me that begins to look an awful lot like the reason why Jesus so often rebuked the Pharisees. Checking boxes to be sure you're getting it right is religion. But Jesus' ministry wasn't about religion, it was about the condition of the human heart, which gets us back to our one job -- Love one another.

Now, before someone jumps in and points out that sin matters, I will say Yes, it absolutely matters. Sin is deadly serious. If sin weren't a problem, there would be no point in Jesus's birth, death or resurrection. When we mess up, the need for repentance is real. But taking care of sin is God's job, not ours. That's what the cross is all about. And figuring out who's saved and who's not? Also, not our job. Of course there are rights and wrongs, but no one gets it right all the time. Look at King David. He was an adulterer and a murderer. He screwed up big time; and yet, God calls him 'a man after my own heart.'

When God looks at us, he sees the big picture. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and what matters to him is what's inside. Let's be honest. You're not earning points with him by teaching Sunday school, organizing the rummage sale, leading worship or anything else that makes us look like 'good' Christians. But when we encounter God's perfect love, it changes us; it causes a change in our hearts that manifests outwardly as the Fruit of the Spirit -- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In short, doing God's will becomes our delight.

I won't pretend it's always easy. We all have people in our lives who are difficult to love -- people who make us throw our arms in the air and yell, "I give up!" That is why we can't do it on our own. We need God's help. As much as it's possible, we need to see things from his perspective. And we also need an impartation of his love.

I believe this world, and the Church itself, would be a whole lot healthier if we would stick to the program. We need to ask God what it really means to love Him and be loved by Him. Once we've sorted out our own hearts (or to be more precise, allowed Him to sort us out), we no longer feel the need to put ourselves in a position of judgment. And we no longer have anything to prove. We begin to see God's own image in others, instead of seeing those who are 'in' or those who are 'out'. Love becomes the main event, and when Love is our primary motivation, miracles happen. Miracles of forgiveness, miracles of healing, miracles of restoration.

As I look ahead to 2019, I want to remain in that place of learning what it means to love and be loved. I want to see others as God sees them, and that can only come as we begin to see ourselves as God does -- as His beloved children. I love how Henri Nouwen describes it, "As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their 'right' place." But living in love brings freedom, for ourselves and others, and that is my hope for 2019 and beyond.