Long Way Here

Peter told the Christ followers living under the tyrannical reign of Nero that they were to love one another with an intense (stretched-out) love (1 Pet. 4:8). It’s when our love is stretched that our strengths and weaknesses are revealed. It’s when our love is stretched that the maturity or immaturity of our faith is revealed.

A stretched-out love refuses to give in to the enemy-making machine (a la Fitch), holds on to compassion, stands with the hurting and vulnerable, resists the labeling and backbiting, forgives the insults, and chooses love when love is hard. It’s in these moments God shows himself strong and gives us supernatural strength to love with a stretched-out love.

Our love becomes resilient.

But if we quit, cave in to the enemy-making machine, ignore the suffering, pain, or rage of our brother and sister because we don’t prefer it or flat out dismiss it, we will possess a love that when stretched, breaks.

Over the coming days lean into the strength God supplies (1 Peter 4:11) and choose to love with a stretched-out love.

A 3 minute visual devotional. I hope it encourages you.

(2:58)

Christ loves without caution or restraint, boundaries or limits. Christ loves you with a love that reaches beyond your inadequacies or failures and feelings or worthiness or unworthiness. And his love welcomes you to participate in his life. We see this in the gospel.

Christ welcomes the liars, thieves, the ashamed, and those struggling to believe. Christ welcomes the rich, the poor, the powerless, and abhorred. Christ welcomes the broken, the addicted, the left out and afflicted. Christ welcomes the sincere, the immigrant, the racist, and hypocrite.

Christ came for the wounded, the confused, the abandoned and abused. He came for you. He came for me. God loves because God is love and His love has the power to transform us.

It is a holy love.

Know you are loved, dear reader.

May you live loved. May you be changed by His love. And may his holy love set you free to wholly love.

Anthony (d. 356), one of the original Egyptian monastics leaders, said:

“Our life and our death are with our neighbor. If we do good to our neighbor, we do good to God. If we cause our neighbor to stumble, we sin against Christ.” (Sayings of the Desert Fathers)

Empathy. Compassion. Hospitality. Solidarity with the struggle and well-being of my neighbor. Doing good.

Martin Luther, a Reformer in the 15th century, said:

“God does not need our good works, but our neighbor does.” (Wingren, Luther on Vocation, 10)

This is what the story of Christianity teaches us. This is how genuine Christian faith processes things.

This is what genuine Christian faith is concerned about, not the Christian’s self, but the Christian’s neighbor.

May our faith be genuine.

May we do good.

In Deuteronomy 1:13-17 Moses knows a great time of transition and change is coming for God’s people. Battles will be fought both inside and outside the community. Challenges will arise from within and without. There will be tough times and prosperous times, times of joy and sorrow. And in the midst of it all, wisdom will be required if they are to navigate these times well. Wisdom will be required if they are to not lose themselves in their successes or failures. When abundance threatens to strike them with amnesia and they are tempted to say to themselves, ‘My power and my own ability have gained this wealth for me,’ they will need the wise to rise up and say, “but remember that the Lord your God gives us the power to gain wealth, in order to confirm his covenant he swore to our ancestors.”

The wise will help them keep their eyes focused on God’s reign and faithful love. The wise will call them to faithfulness.

The wise will remind them to step away from the network news and social media newsfeeds, and breath so they can think for themselves. The wise will remind them to do the research before drawing a line in the sand. The wise will remind them to listen to their neighbors, especially the least among them, so they can hear the fullest versions of the story. The wise will remind them to take all they see and hear and measure it in light of the Scriptures. The wise will call them, above all things, to act with love for God, neighbor, and enemy alike, because that is how God loves.

The wise will remind them that God is faithful and resilient and, by God’s power, they can be resilient too.

Our Church, city, and nation does not need loud people or eloquent people or smart people.

Our Church, city, and nation needs wise people. Wise people are resilient people, faithful in love, quick to listen, humble in spirit, steady in compassion, committed to mercy, courageous in character, and knowledgable of the whole counsel of God.

The wise choose their battles wisely. The wise resist the temptation to define another human being by labels. The wise are honest with their biases and desires and how these biases and desires impact how they interpret what they see.

The wise can rightly discern the times, not with American party politics like liberalism or conservatism—you and I will answer to God for all that stuff—but with what reflects what we see in the life and teachings of Jesus.

The wise are resilient in the way of Jesus because the wise remember His resilient love on the cross to liberate the world.

Who will be the wise? Will you be the wise? Will I be the wise? Will we be the wise?

(This is a snippet from Sunday’s conversation with WCC. )