“Those who look to the law of love as Jesus taught it, as the law of perfect liberty, and act accordingly as doers, whose acts are motivated by that love, will be blessed by God for living by that teaching.”
– Br. David Allen
“Jesus risked reputation and dignity in order to love—risked loving even a sinner. “O Lord, who risks everything to love, show us compassion that does not count the cost, and teach us to share it without hesitation.”
Do I?
Do I risk ‘everything’ to love like Jesus? Do I follow a royal law of Love at all costs?
Do I risk my pithy reputation to love like Jesus loved? I sit in churches so often and all I hear is sermons majoring on the minors (so to speak), but rarely do I hear sermons about loving like Jesus did. Some say love the sinner and hate the sin, but I am only human and do not possess the surgical precision needed to separate the “sin” from the sinner, so I end up hating the sinner even as I say I am only hating the sin.
I can sit in the rooms and listen to others share their experience, strength and hope and I slice my fellow alcoholics to bits with the surgical knife of my mind.
Plain and simply put, I am afraid to love like this.
I am aware that most followers of Jesus are afraid to love like this: we fear being called gay, radical, Muslim, liberal, drunk, addict, loser, sinner, scum, one of “them” if I am in proximity to “them” attempting feebly to love like Jesus.
Or even worse, I fear being called “Jesus freak” – which is actually a grand compliment.
The old adage says, visiting someone with cancer does not mean I condone smoking; but I fear if I love those different from me, then I will be accused of being one of “them.”
But is that so bad?
Jesus was accused of being a sinner, a glutton, a drunk, a ‘friend’ of sinners, one who dined with traitors and whores… And yet, all he did was love, love, love.
Do I…?
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