We children of God have a tendency to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. Please read the following tale (real-life in its basic aspects) and then look at yourself in the mirror and try to tell yourself you love as Jesus loved. Not really.
Love is a most demanding mistress. It can make you vulnerable to hurt, and not just the kind of hurt that the one you love inflicts on you wittingly and maliciously. Sometimes your love for your neighbor or close friend turns on you and slashes at you in one or more areas of your life and the recipient of your love does not realize it. Let me cite an example:
There are many different types of people in this world, but for the sake of making a point let's consider just two of these many varieties. First there is type A. He is the person who, when his friend is in financial need and asks for help, will truthfully tell his friend, "I really don't have the fifty dollars you need right now. You know I would give you the money if I could."
But what the type A friend is honestly not considering is the $100 he has stashed away in some sort of account from which he can withdraw the fifty bucks at any time. In his thinking the money in the account is not actually available: it is there for a specific purpose and in his mind he can't touch it. If he had the money available from his daily living expenses, he would have readily given it to his friend. That was one sort of love.
Then there is type B. He or she is the friend who loves a little more like their Master; they care more deeply than their type A counterpart. When her or his destitute friend asks for a fifty-dollar handout to make it through a very tight situation, type B considers his whole financial picture. He too has only a meager $100 squirreled away somewhere and he too cannot take the money from his daily living expenses. But type B loves and he cares deeply, enough that he will take the $50 requested out of his rainy-day savings and give it to his friend in need. He has considered his friend’s moment of need to be his own rainy-day moment. We know it was actually his friend who needed the money, but love for his friend makes him consider the friend's need as his own.
When we show love in this manner we are beginning to show Jesus in our lives. Jesus in His humanity had the glory and majesty and power that rightfully belonged to Him, at His disposal. When His friend, man, was in mortal need and had to have all the resources Jesus had as the Son of God, Jesus did not say, "I can't afford it." He loved too greatly for that spineless kind of thinking. He gave His all and held no glory or majesty or power in reserve. If He had, all humanity would have been damned forever. Jesus did not give from a meager stockpile; He gave His all, including His life. There was no more for Him to give. Love had exhausted His vast resources to save one slimy, filthy worm from a never ceasing torment in hell.
You know of course that our love consists in more than a mere giving of money. Love is indeed a demanding mistress and it extorts from us our very lifeblood. If we love our neighbor as ourselves, it follows that we will withhold nothing from him that he needs. I will not go so far as to say we will give him everything he wants; that is not the scriptural meaning of love.
Here is another test of true love: If I have three suits (which do not make a well-dressed man) and I often see a brother worshipping beside me who is poorly attired – not unkempt or unclean – how can I not, out of my few suits, give him one? I should do it discreetly of course; there is no need to humiliate my brother in the name of love.
I have seen that kind of love in action time and again. I am not talking about me, but about my deceased father who gave and gave of whatever he had that another might not go lacking. He was the pastor in his later years of a large church, but I have it on good authority that he voluntarily limited his financial take from the church to a ridiculously low figure to avoid the appearance of being money hungry. And concerning the three suits, that was not based on an actual happening, but on his principle of giving until it hurt. I am sure there were times in the early years of his ministry when he didn’t have even three suits. But the man gave and gave (without trumpets accompanying every deed) and God continually supplied him with what he and his growing family needed. I don’t want to be exactly like any human I know, but one like my father I will gladly follow - as long as he follows Christ.
There is One whom we should all follow: Jesus Christ. We should all love as our Savior loved, and that is selflessly and unconditionally. And give until it hurts.
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