LOVE OR LIKE

LOVE is unconditional, LIKE is conditional. Love puts no importance in what someone else says or does. In fact, true love will cause us to reach out to someone even while we are being hurt, while like makes us walk away from someone who may be hurting because they do or say something we do not like.

I write this, as I do most things, because it is what God is teaching me. Moreover, I must confess this is not a lesson that I thought I needed to learn. Oh was I wrong. I was condemning someone who abandoned and hurt me while at the same time considering abandoning them for what they had done. Can you say hypocrite? As I pondered whether I wanted to give that person another chance because of what they had done, God hit me with the realization that in thinking like that I was doing to them the very same thing that I was mad at them for doing to me.

Can you imagine the number of Bible verses and commands that came flooding into my mind? The first, ironically enough, was one that I thought I needed to post on the bulletin board at work. For, of course, I thought that others needed to see this verse. It is Colossians 3:13 and I have personalized the pronouns so I guess you could call this the Me Edition (ME)…

                I must make allowance for other’s faults and forgive the person who offends me. Remember, the LORD forgave me, so I must forgive them.

How humbling it was to have a verse written out on a 3 x 5 card to memorize, share and be ready to hit others with, only to have the Holy Spirit hit me between the eyes with it. I had read that verse to myself practically every day for weeks. I guess that goes to show you how hard headed I am. Sometimes it really does take forever for things to sink in.

Jesus told Peter that we should forgive another, not up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven (Matthew 18:22). How often do those of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, me included, throw away relationships, friendships, marriages, etc., because we are offended, hurt, misused, or otherwise treated badly just once? Shame on me and the rest of you who, like me, have failed to do what Christ has commanded.

God loves us even when we are his enemy (Romans 5:10) and commands us repeatedly to do the same (Matthew 5.44, Romans 12:14, 1 Peter 3:9, et. al.) So if we are told to forgive our enemies, how much more should we forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ, our relatives, our friends, our mates? I have seen it repeatedly in churches and so-called Christian relationships where a person commits a sin and is immediately judged not worthy to be a part of that church or relationship any more. How sad it must make Papa God to see us so hurt those who need us the most. I find nowhere in the scriptures where we are told to exile or otherwise end a relationship based on a single offense. Even multiple offenses are to be handled with the intent to restore the fallen, not throw them away.

Therefore, now that I have said all that, I come full circle, and offer my most humble apology to anyone whom I have so treated or even thought about treating that way. I pray that I will learn what it means to love without conditions and without judgment so that I may shine with the love of Jesus for others to see. I pray that you too will offer forgiveness to those whom you have conditionally loved so that you might be an example to all the world of what true Christian love is.