On liking, loving, and honoring those difficult people in my life!

I'm sitting here this afternoon going over the material for my Sunday morning sermon and listening to the Lord as He speaks to me about the application of several difficult passages of scripture.  Tomorrow I will preaching on what it means to not just love, but to actually like people in the world around us.  We'll look at a number of scriptures and some key components on how to make this a reality.  The problem though is that words are easily spoken but not so easy to apply.  Seldom do we struggle with the command to love one another.  But how often do we realize that you can't really love someone without first liking them?  If my heart is not predisposed toward relationship, what is the purpose of the extending of love?  Relationship demands a sense of like long before it becomes love and when we finally realize that, we are released to truly embrace and fulfill Christ's command.

I live in a world where I often hear people say, "I'll love them, but I don't have to like them."  Last week I shared with my congregation that you can't say that and truly express love.  Love demands like and vice versa.  But what happens when the people in your pathway are unlikeable or unlovable?  What happens when they grate you the wrong way and you'd rather lash out than reach out in unity and love?

Christ calls us to a higher standard.  It is what sets Christianity apart as a relational belief system.  In practicing our faith, we must move beyond platitudes and embrace authentic action.  We must learn to like and then to love even the most difficult people in our pathway.  I don't like that anymore than the next guy.  There are people in my life that are what HB London called, "joy suckers."  They suck the life right out of you when you are around them.  But if I am who I claim to be, I can't turn my back on them.  I can't reject them.  I must show Christ to them and that means that I enter in a relationship of like and love with them that through me they can see Jesus.  It hasn't been and isn't easy.  I often fail.  But on those occasions where I let Christ lead the way, it is amazing how even the unlikeable suddenly seem to have things about them that are attractive to me.  It's amazing how the unlovable suddenly seem to have something magnetic about them.  With Christ pointing me forward, I find myself liking and loving and even showing honor to them.  It's His call.  It's what it means to be like Jesus.  It's what our world needs if we are ever going to get beyond all this relational brokenness.  The question is, "will we respond and let God work this liking, loving, honoring work through us?"

Join me on this journey and let's see if we can't just make a real and lasting difference.

Be The Change

Gandhi once wrote, "Be the change you want to see in the world."  As I think about that statement and consider all that it means for me, I realize how great a responsibility I have - in fact we all have - to be agents of change and transformation in culture.  Someone once said that if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten.  Too often we sit back and find fault with things around us that remain the same and continue to be the proverbial "burr in our saddle" not because they have such great and lasting power and are oblivious to change - but because we have simply failed to address their fault and offer something different.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that at the point where grace intersects our life we are made new.  The word he uses there is a Greek word that refers to something that has never existed before.  In other words, when we give our lives to Christ we are transformed - changed from the inside out and made into a completely new being.  That grace transformation issues itself in a new world of responsibility, for a few verses later we are called "ambassadors."  That is a powerful word.  It refers to one who goes on behalf of or represents another with all the rights and power of the one they represent.  In this case, we would go on behalf of Christ Jesus - with all the rights and power of who He is with the ability IN HIM to effect change in our world.

That brings me back to Gandhi.  If I want to live in a world filled with love and grace and goodness, then I must be the very reflection of the love, grace, and goodness that I seek.  If I want my world to embrace the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ, then I must be the very reflection of one who has embraced the Gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ.  I want my world to change.  I am tired of the negativism and the suffering and the brokenness that is so much a part of the people and the lives that I encounter on a daily basis.  But that change to something different, something better - to become transformed by Christ won't just happen.  I have to lead the way.  I have to be the change that I want to see.  I must reflect His heart, His love, His grace, His transforming power at work in me, so that through me He can bring those things to my world.

That is my heart's desire.  It is all that I want.  I wonder...would you join me on that journey?  Would you help me to transform our world by being the Christ-centered change that we want to see?