love relentlessly: part ii
If love doesn’t resent but bears all things and endures all things then forgiveness has to be one of the key building blocks of love…but forgiving is difficult. Sometimes it feels nearly impossible. But, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, if you cannot forgive, then you cannot experience love in its fullness. The Scriptures teach that we can love and we can forgive because Christ first loved us and gave up His life for us…while we were still sinners. He who did no wrong forgave us of our wrongdoing. Too often we only want to forgive those who are remorseful and those who have said they are sorry; that makes forgiving easy (or at least easier). True forgiveness is forgiving someone when they are wrong and when they have hurt you and when they won’t say I’m sorry. Jesus loved and forgave even though He was completely without fault and we were completely guilty. That is forgiveness. If you are resentful and are holding on to past hurt, you are not expressing love and you cannot fully receive love. Sorry, that is just what the Scriptures say.
Like most things, popular culture has wrecked the idea of love. Flowers, hearts, emotional feelings…that is love. Wrong. That is a lie. Those things may be a part of expressing certain types of love, but they are not love. Our culture teaches that love is a feeling but in reality love is a commitment and a decision, not a feeling. Love doesn’t happen; you chose to love, even when hating would be so much easier, and to many around you, “justified.” That is why I like using the word “relentless” when I think about what it takes to love. I picture love as a warrior dressed for battle more than a fat baby with a flimsy bow and arrow. If we are to love as the Bible calls us to love, we must relentlessly push aside the voices (inside of us and reinforced by the culture around us) that tell us not to forgive…because to not forgive is to not love and to not love is to not experience life as Christ desires.
Comments
One of the things I always remember is that “Forgiveness isn’t for the forgiven, it’s for the forgiver.”
We are releasing their control over our lives, our emotions, moving towards living out the love of Christ in our lives.
Totally see the imagery of a warrior who understands that love his a ‘battle’ spiritually…one that takes courage to be fully present in.
Yet, more than a warrior dressed for battle…I picutre love as a bruised and broken Jesus…who demonstrated the cost of ultimate love by choosing to willfully lay down His own life… refusing to retalitate…refusing even to encourge his disciples to violently take- up His ‘offense’…He himself did not engage in hateful or violent speech against those closest to him who betrayed him or those who handed him over to be cruicified…and most astonishingly…he continued to extend this love, perhaps present in radical forgiveness even then… to the men who crucified him. This is love…to lay down your life ( figuratively or literally) for another.
I know I have a long way to go in loving like that.
i think it is all of the above…Jesus, afterall, returns on His horse dressed for the battle. That being said…I completely agree with you. You are correct that my use of the warrior image has everything to do with the war that is waged between spirit and flesh. Flesh wants to be right and to lash out and love wants to forgive. It is a war inside of us to love as Christ loved. To love takes a relentless pursuit of the Spirit-led life. What a battle!
I am in some serious denial right now that forgiving is better than hating….ugh, it is not that easy! But this definitely has made me think and feel like it is holding me back in so many other areas of my life! Thanks for the great post Brian!!!
Chrisitan…thanks again for stopping by the blog and for the insight.
Jessica…thank you for the raw honesty and i agree: it is difficult; very very difficult! that is why we have to lean on God to forgive. He desires for us to come to Him for the power to forgive. When we do that, He can give us the grace it takes to forgive.
keeping fighting the good fight…
saw this quote today Brian…and thought of you, Day 12 and the blog post:
” Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.” – Toni Morrison, writer and winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature
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