““A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.””
– John 13:34-35
What is “love” like? How do we consistently understand love when we fall short of it all the time?
We understand love by coming to know Jesus. He not only explains it, but He also exhibits it–He puts it out in the public eye for all to see. His explanation of what love is will mean a cruel death in order to save us. When Jesus dies, I am saved. My salvation has absolutely nothing to do with me– and everything to do with Him, and all that He has done.
Jesus helps us to see others. He makes a definitive statement, that we are to love others. We are to use what He has done for me, as an example. What Jesus did is the pattern, the prototype. We are to be the photostat or mimeograph. As believers we are to be captured and drawn into this approach.
We are to find someone, and then, in some sense, ‘die’ for them. That is the way God’s love is.
That very strong word, “must“ in verse 34 cannot escape our attention. It implies a deep and a very definite commitment to doing that is beyond us. We ‘must’ connect and receive all that moves through our life. We love the unlovely, and this is irrational. God says that people are worth crucifixion. We’re the criminals, and the judge has sentenced us. And then He Himself has decided to pay our penalty. This is ‘agape’ love.
We must love accurately. We should love the way He loves us. We cannot do anything less.
But the love of Jesus is tracking each wanderer. He is working to connect with every person on this planet. No one escapes His view, or His love. Everyone who belongs to Him, is required to know this. Our Lord is definitely not going to move if there are still “seekers” still out there. He leaves no one behind.
Loving others will require a significant broadening of the way we see things. We purposefully lift up Jesus because He lifted us. We exalt Him because we have discovered we are so pitiful. We must be convinced, that His way, is the way of the cross.
We must love more accurately —the same way He loves us. We cannot do anything less. For many of us, love is just a concept–a way of feeling ‘warm and fuzzy’ inside. But it is far more than feeling nice thoughts. It is all about “the extra mile” and we honestly can’t make that trip if we haven’t been willing to die ourselves.
It seems I’m the world’s worst and the clumsiest of all. And since my brain surgery, it has gotten even worse. I fall several times every month. I need to use a cane now. (And if you look up “klutz” in the dictionary you’ll see my picture, lol.) 😃
When I start to dance,you had better head for higher ground!
Even so, I do love the idea of dancing, but I’m like Bozo, the circus clown, only wearing roller skates! I lurch from side-to-side and I’m always on the verge of falling on someone’s lap, which is a real hoot!
But there is just one dance that I am waiting for.
It’s the dance I’ll have with my Savior. There will be a day, in a place and time where He will call me home and He himself will teach me how to dance. I know it’ll be incredible, and it’s a day that I anticipate, and honestly, I hope it comes soon. (He’s finally going to heal me!)
But to really dance you must first liberate your heart.
You must cancel out all self-consciousness. If you are self-aware, you will never enter into the joy and wonder of the true dance. You will be a perpetual wallflower, living only on the edges. And, you will be very sad.
It seems you must dance in your heart before you can ever dance with your feet.
I desperately would like to dance. And when I see Him clearly on that day, I’ll have no cane to slow me down. I will be as graceful, and to be perfectly honest, I won’t be watching you, (I’m sorry). I will see only Jesus. And I believe that my heart will beat for Him exclusively.
Jesus shed His blood for me.
I belong to Him. He forgave all my sin and has given me eternal life. Knowing this fills me with such joy that my feet won’t stand still. He redeems me, and is this not a cause for a dance, or two, or maybe three? Maybe eternity will be filled with more joy than we ever dreamed possible?
Some of you have been damaged; mashed up in the grinding gears of life, chewed up and spit out. It’s hard to dance. I understand.
But I also know that your life can be astonishingly full of grace– you have endured so much, and yet Jesus intends to occupy your thoughts and vision with real hope. As His disciple, you’ll discover your special dance. And when you finally see Him, your heart will finally be free to spin and twirl.
He after all is the dancing Lord.
“Young women and young men, together with the elderly, will celebrate and dance because I will comfort them and turn their sorrow into happiness.”
A Pastor’s Letter to the Parents of a Child Born Blind
Dear John and Diane,
You are the child, and He is your father
Last night, as I prayed with Noel, you were heavy on my mind. I said, “Lord, O Lord, please let me be a pastor who preaches and leads and loves in a way that makes the impossibilities of life possible for your people by a miracle of sustaining grace. Help me to know the weight and pain of this life and not to be breezy when the mountains have fallen into the sea. Help me to have the aroma of Christ’s sufferings about me. Prevent shallowness and callousness to pain. O Lord make me and my people a burden bearing people.”
O John and Diane, I am so heavy with your child’s sightlessness!
God is visiting Bethlehem with such pain these days in the birth of broken children. Randy and Ann Erickson with their baby’s broken heart; Jan and Rob Barrett with their baby’s liver outside the body; and your precious little one! Is the Lord saying, “I have a gift for your community.” This is not one or two or three couples’ burden. This is a gift and call to the whole church. This word concerning the brokenness of this fallen age of futility. This is an invitation for you all to believe that “here we have no lasting city” (Hebrews 13:14).
This is an invitation for you to “count every gain as loss for the sake of Christ” (Philippians 3:7). This is a shocking test to see if you will “lose heart” when in fact God’s purpose is to show that his grace is sufficient to renew our inner person every day to deal with the “slight momentary affliction which is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
O Lord, open our eyes to your love in this pain.
Open our eyes. “Then Elisha prayed, and said, ‘O Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha”(2 Kings 6:17). John and Diane, the mountains surrounding your lives are filled with the horses and chariots of God.
Only to the eyes of unbelief does the devil have the upper hand here. God is at work in ways and for years and generations and millions of people that we cannot now imagine.
This is ours to believe and to bear, no matter the cost. This is ours for this short life. It seems to me that this life is a proving ground for the kingdom to come. Some are asked to devote forty or fifty years to caring for a handicapped child instead of breezing through life without pain. Others are asked to be blind all their lives… But only in this life – ONLY in this life some are . I want to be the kind person who makes that “ONLY” what it really is – very short. Prelude to the infinity of joy, joy, joy.
But not yet. Not entirely.
How will we ever cope with the burdens of this life if we believe this is all there is, or even the main act in this drama of reality? O Lord, give us your view of things. May God fill you with anticipated joy. “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
Here are things I’ve heard over the years that we must take a second look at. Here are some possible answers.
“There must be something wrong with your spiritual life.”
Yes, depression CAN be a result of sin. BUT depression is NOT always a result of sin! If it is, God will tell you loud and clear what the problem is. This saying piles on the guilt for the depressed Christian. It’s unlikely that their depression has a spiritual cause, and this implies that they are not good enough spiritually.
“Repent and ask forgiveness for your sin!”
Depression is a result of sin, in that if there was no sin in the world depression wouldn’t exist. But then, neither would diabetes, cancer, or any other illness… Sin caused the world to be not-perfect, therefore illness exists. It’s a sin to be depressed, any more than it is to have any other illness. Depression can be used by God to encourage repentance, but in that case, it will be crystal clear exactly what sin you should repent of. If you don’t know or have just a vague sense of guilt, your depression is not the result of sin.
“You need to have more faith.” or “Have faith in God.”
Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” How much faith does it take to hold onto the Christian faith when emotions scream at you daily to give up, get out and turn against God? Very often a depressed Christian will be hanging onto faith by their fingernails in something that requires a ton of faith.
“Taking antidepressants is playing God, He can heal you.”
Yes, God can heal. Sometimes he doesn’t just flick a switch to make the illness vanish, sometimes the healing comes through the conventional ways of doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists, and medication. By persuading someone not to take their medicines in preference for a quick, supernatural healing that God may not have in store for them, the sufferer is being denied something that will help them, right now.
“Scripture says everything that happens is for your own good!”
The actual verse found in Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” This verse in no way implies that the sufferer should sit back and accept the illness for the rest of their life. It also does not say that illnesses are not to be fought with the intention of a cure. While God may well have things to do with a depressed person, the illness is not a good thing itself, and it may take years before you see positive results from it.
“You’ve been prayed for, why has nothing changed?”
This can be expressed in several ways and spoken by one of two different groups of people: either the person who asked for prayer or those who prayed for them. We’ll break the underlying situation into two areas: something definite was experienced in the prayer time: chains were obviously broken and new freedom gained, or, nothing apparently happened at all. That is, “I know God set you free,” why aren’t you free yet?
“Depression is a self-discipline problem.”
Self-discipline is important to a Christian. We have to be disciplined enough not to break the laws of the land, and to obey our God. But no amount of discipline will get rid of a medical problem. This statement implies that the sufferer is lazy and could become better by sheer force of will. This is not possible and causes a lot of guilt.
“You’re depressed because you choose to be.”
Why would anyone choose depression? It is hell on earth. It destroys everything it touches. Families, marriages, jobs, churches, and ministries- faith, peace, hope, and love. Depression corrodes all that it touches.
Does a diabetic or cancer patient choose their disease? Does the blind or the deaf person wake up in the morning and decide they aren’t going to keep being handicapped? These are the questions I would ask.
“You just need to rebuke that spirit of depression and tell it to leave you. Don’t let Satan steal your joy.”
There are two problems with this statement. One problem is the assumption that depression is caused by demonic oppression. The other problem is the assumption that joy and happiness are the same things. Blaming a “spirit of depression” can be a wonderful cop-out. Just cast out the spirit and you’re cured! No need for long-term support, prayer, counseling, or anything at all! And with this statement comes the implicit assumption that once again it’s your fault you’re depressed, this time because you’re not “spiritual” enough to get rid of the troublesome spirit yourself.
Yes, it is possible that demonic oppression can cause depression. No, demons are not responsible for every case of depression. Imagine what would happen if this statement was directed at someone with cancer, hemophilia, or osteoporosis (“Just cast out that demon attacking your bones and be strong again! God wants to see you running marathons!”).
The second problem with this statement is that joy is equated with happiness. People with depression are not going to be the happiest souls in the church. I’ve heard it said that happiness depends on what happens, whereas joy can exist in very unhappy situations.
“There’s no such thing as mental illness, it’s all in your mind”
Saying this denies that there is anything actually wrong with the depressed person, and implies that they are just making it up. This piles on the guilt again! A mental illness can be defined as one that affects the mind; the brain is allowed to get ill, just as the liver and lungs are.
“It’s your own fault you’re depressed”
This is the kind of thing that Job’s “comforters” said, and it didn’t help then either. Bad things can happen to good people. Denying this hurts the sufferer.
“Pull yourself together”
If you’ve been trying, someone saying this to you comes across as “You haven’t been trying hard enough, do more, and more, and more until you get it right.” So back you go, pushing more and more, and still getting nowhere because you cannot pull yourself out of depression by your bootstraps, and you can’t fix a medical problem by force of will.
