Love, in my opinion, is an overrated
emotion with an underrated performance, at least in Christendom. If it weren’t,
surely there wouldn’t be as many divisions in the church of Jesus Christ.
In his work ‘Four Loves,’ C.S Lewis
mentions two forms of love: Gift-Love and Need-Love. He describes them as, “The typical example of Gift-love would be
that love which moves a man to work and plan and save for the future well-being
of his family which he will die without sharing or seeing; of the second, that
which sends a lonely or frightened child to its mother's arms.” God’s love
is Gift-Love. HE lacks nothing, so HE expects nothing from anyone for HIS satisfaction.
Man’s love can be either of these, depending on a given situation. However, we
fail at times and it is that failure I want to highlight, but with a prayer for
an enriched Christ-like life in yours and mine.
When those unaware of biblical truths know
and teach love, shouldn’t Christians, by virtue of our supernatural
transformation (cf. John 3:5-8) and knowledge of Bible’s lofty standards, pave
way for the world to love? How genuine or Christ-like is christian love? Pardon
me if this hurts; I have often seen the Lord Jesus Christ in the love of a
non-christian than a christian.
The heart of love of some christians is,
‘if you love me, I will love you; if you hate me, I will hate you.’ Or, ‘if you
do what I say, I will love you; if you rebel, I will hate you.’ Aren’t these
thoughts similar to, ‘if you gratify me, I will gratify you’ or ‘you scratch my
back and I’ll scratch yours?’ Yes, love is involved in these acts, but hate is equally
involved due to selfishness.
A powerfully creative human mind can manufacture
fascinating rationale to un-love or trash another (I use the term ‘un-love,’
for ‘hate’ may be too hard an antonym to ‘love’ in this context). Let me
elaborate. We live in the digital realm - email, twitter, facebook et al - where
one can quite easily trash a friend. One instance of trashing, an expression of
scorn, is un-friending on facebook. Of course there are other novel ways to express
our scorn.
A holy rationale for trashing a friend
could be that he isn’t walking his talk (practicing what he preaches). Let me dwell
in this subject for a few moments of your time.
When we accuse a friend for not walking
his talk, we make certain presuppositions. Common knowledge states that misunderstanding
frequently arises through controversial situations. One presupposition in
accusation is superior knowledge of all aspects of the controversial situation.
Another presupposition is superior knowledge of the theme of accusation (anger,
misappropriation of finances, adultery etc.), especially the biblical
interpretation. If the unceremonial trashing has occurred while the controversial
situation was under way and none implicated conclusively in the controversy,
the trasher presupposes a superior predictive knowledge of the character of the
trashed. In a nutshell, the trasher claims superior knowledge of his friend’s
walk, talk, and the theology of it all. But that’s not it, when one trashes
another for hypocrisy; the one who trashes claims a holier life devoid of
hypocrisy.
While worldly and spiritual maturity,
discernment and wisdom lead to superior knowledge, one should be wise and
diligent to exercise judgment over another, especially in the event of
destroying or interrupting a relationship. Any incorrect move on the part of a trasher
will position him in the realm of having sinned against the second greatest
commandment of God, which is to love the other as oneself. A spiritual man can
judge another (cf. 1 Corinthians 2: 15, NIV), but as we know the spiritual man
is entirely reliant upon the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2: 9-10, NIV). When a
christian decides to trash a friend for the sake of apparent or actual hypocrisy,
he claims revelation from God about hypocrisy. Thus, in trashing he invokes
God’s presence and judgment upon himself. A mighty ramification to an unnecessary
action!
Look at this from another perspective. Why
should Christians choose un-loving /trashing as the only way to confront
relationships? Is it not possible to dialogue? If the dialogue gets rough and
shoddy, is it impossible to continue to love, rather than un-love or trash the
person? Eventually, ‘un-loving’ morphs into ‘hatred.’ This is a dangerous
situation for man, let alone Christianity.
This verse always renders me speechless,
“But God demonstrates His own love toward
us, in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NASB; emphasis mine). The
holy God loved me when I was constantly and consciously abusing HIM. Can u
digest this? When we are overwhelmed by God’s love, why can’t we love one another
with HIS love, especially when we claim that God lives in us? God allows man to
depart from HIS presence only when man chooses to reject HIM through unbelief. However,
if a man seeks and believes in God, then God, by no means, will reject or trash
man from HIS presence.
My response to rejection is not to disturb
those who reject me. If a friend disbelieves me, then I would rather stay away
from him, instead of trying my best to prove my credibility. This by no means implies
that my door is closed. My door is always open to the one who rejects me, but I
neither have the patience nor strength to run after him to prove my
credibility. Of course we can dialogue, I am there to talk, or if you prove my
guilt, I will willingly apologize. But I am much rigid if I am faultless in
that particular context.
Ravi Zacharias narrates how Sammy
Dagger, a Lebanese evangelist, was instrumental in leading Franklin Graham
(Rev. Billy Graham’s son) to Christ.1 Rev. Billy Graham led multitudes
to the Lord, but his own son was led to the Lord by another evangelist. Does
this imply a failure of the acclaimed evangelist? Do we interpret that Rev.
Billy Graham’s walk of his talk was inconsistent that he was unable to lead his
own son (who was witness to Rev. Billy’s private life) to the Lord? I
definitely do not think so! No situation is adequate or justifiable to trash
another.
Walking the talk is pivotal to a
christian life, for belief determines behavior, and behavior is the manifestation
of belief. However, one can always find sin in another’s life, which would
render his walk imperfect. This is precisely why we are called to mind our own
business before we mind another’s business. Alternatively, we are called to
remove the log from our eye before we help remove the speck from our brother’s eye
(Matthew 7:3, NASB). Let us remember that Christ states that we have a LOG in
our eye whereas our brother has only a SPECK in his eye. Our sins are much
worse in comparison to our brother’s.
Let us be mindful of walking our talk,
and be right in God’s eyes, before we trash others for their apparent or actual
inconsistencies. Trashing should be removed from the vocabulary of a Christian.
Love should replace trash and its synonyms.
If you have been trashed or forsaken by
your friend, then let the wonderful words of the hymn, ‘What a friend we have
in Jesus,’ comfort, encourage and direct you:
“Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take
it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee, Thou
wilt find a solace there.”
Our friends may trash us, but Christ
will always heal and will never ever trash or reject the one who seeks and
believes in HIM. Amen.
Over the next few weeks, I will endeavor
to dwell on topics such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research, reproductive
technologies, biotechnology and human cloning, euthanasia and physician
assisted suicide, sexual ethics, war et al. Christian response to these subjects
would be the theme of these blogs.
References:
1“Sammy Dagger was instrumental in
bringing Franklin Graham back to the Lord, the son of Billy. Franklin was in
Beruit, a loser and a lost, hanging around with a life completely confused, and
Sammy was instrumental in bringing Franklin to Christ, and Sammy didn't even
know who Billy Graham was.”
(http://www.hlrse.net/Qwerty/transcriptions/RZIM_IsThereNotACause/RZIM_IsThereNotACause_Transcript_20111213-2105.txt
)
