the dark side of loving like my lord

” If I love you more, am I to be loved less?” (2 Corinthians 12:15)

I have no doubts that no other being has ever loved like the Creator of all things does love. I mean; who would condemn his only son for his enemies? Who would love the most unloving beings in the entire universe, especially when these beings decided to rebel in the first place? Who would be willing to suffer all manner of evils , so he could love others? God is the answer to all these questions. Nobody loves like God. Yet I have found in my own walk with the Lord that God’s love is not what we, broken sinful humans, call love. In addition, the Scriptures inform me that His love goes beyond words and feelings. Maybe in centuries past, people probably had a better idea of what true love, God’s love, was. Unfortunately, 21st century people had degraded this 4 letter word to the point that most of us grew up with the idea that true love was what Hollywood portrayed in the movies, unbridled but fickle emotions that fled away with the passing of time. No wonder that we all have a very difficult time finding true, lasting and meaningful relationships these days.

I praise my Lord and my God that I have come to a better understanding of what true love is, especially God’s love for His people. I now know that supernatural love is based on the free choice of God, without external compulsions ( Deuteronomy 7:9), is not in response to our own goodness (Titus 3:5) and is supported and manifested by actions (John 3:16, Romans 5:8). In other words, God’s love is purposeful, merciful and actionable. At the same time, we are called and commanded to love in this way also, as believers and followers of the Messiah. We have been empowered by the Spirit to love so. 1 John 3:18 commands to love not in empty talk but in actions and not based on feelings or the societal definitions of love but in the revealed truth. I must confess that loving this way is not an easy endeavor. It has not been easy, nor have I attained this level of love yet. God had worked in my heart and mind, so that I have come to possess at least an idea of what loving like Jesus is all about. Selfishness, lusts and pride always seem to impede the process. Concurrently, the other big obstacle is the realization that loving others like my Father in heaven and His Son carries the great risk that it might not be reciprocal, and that is what I call the “dark side of loving like my Lord”.

I don’t mean that this kind of love is dark in the sense of being evil. It is dark in the sense of being painful and sometimes disappointing. 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 beautifully and poetically spells out the biblical definition of true, Divine love. This type of love is long-suffering, kind, humble, honors others, is selfless and not vengeful, doesn’t agree with wickedness but takes great pleasure in the truth, stays under all situations without going astray from commitment and suffers all wrongs. Certainly, this is not the kind of love we used to, and certainly, only the Trinity can perfectly fulfill this love. We see in Messiah Jesus living out this love. Now as I mentioned, loving like this has a dark side. My Lord Himself experienced this dark side, and the prophets of old and the apostles too, especially Paul. How? The Son of God came to Israel to save her from her sins. What did Israel do to her Messiah? It crucified Him; it maligned Him; it rejected His words and works and called Him, demon possessed. What does Israel still do to her Messiah? It rejects Him; it mocks Him and calls Him, Yeshu, which means ” may His name be blotted out”. Isn’t that sufficient to break Christ’s heart due to the rejection of His people? He loved them with divine , perfect love, and what did He receive in return? A cross and a tomb. Let’s also look at the prophets and apostles. These were men who sacrificed mm every comfort, and took extreme pains to take the savings message of God to the ends of the earth, and what did they get in return? Rejection, mockings, and martyrdom. Even Paul himself complained to the Corinthians that in loving them more, he was loved a lot less by them. Isn’t this the dark side of this type of love? This love can and does disappoint many times because the people who receive this love don’t reciprocate the same love. Most of the time, what they reciprocate is ungratefulness and ingratitude, and if they love back at all, it’s always a shallow and fickle bundle of emotions and feelings that don’t endure until the end. This can be enough to prevent me from loving like my Lord. It’s hard to receive little or no love when one has loved much. This thought alone puts enough fear in my spirit to try not to love this way, but at the same time I know there is the light side of this kind of love, which gives me hope and motivates me, and that is that whoever loves like this will be a recipient of God’s love for all ages to come. The Bible guarantees this, and I believe it so. May His name be not blotted out but blessed, praised and honored forevermore!!! Amen.