Lessons in Love

At church this morning, David Tarus (our director) told the congregation about a little boy named Hillary from a neighboring village who has club foot. His mom brought him to our training center in hopes that we could somehow help him. Without surgery, he will never walk, run, or dance, but his mom is a widow and cannot afford the costly surgery. David asked the church if we would give sacrificially so that Hillary might have the surgery and grow up able to do all the activities every child loves to do. Before we took the offering, he asked everyone in the church to say together, “Hillary, we love you as we love the Lord.” We declared it together as a body and then every person gave what they could. “Hillary, we love you as we love the Lord!”

Those words pierced me. What would my life look like if I truly loved each person in my life as I love the Lord? Have I ever loved someone as I claim to love the Lord? Truly loved them as I would if it were the Lord were standing in front of me? I don’t know that I have. But this is what God calls us to. Every story I hear about, every person I come across, I am to respond as I would to the living Christ. If Jesus didn’t have a meal tonight and it was in my power to provide food for him, wouldn’t I do it? If Jesus needed surgery so that He could walk, wouldn’t I do everything I could to help? If I heard that Jesus was sick, wouldn’t I go to visit Him? If Jesus walked by me on the road, wouldn’t I stop to greet Him? If Jesus wanted to share about His day with me, wouldn’t I take the time to listen? Wouldn’t I give Him my full attention? Yet these are not always my responses to others I pass during the day.

If Jesus were an orphan and needed $3 to eat today and go to school, would I give it to him? Or would I tell him sorry because I already gave my tithe at church and I’m really in the mood for a smoothie? If He was sick and dying without any money for malaria medicine, would I tell Him to try elsewhere because I really wanted to see a certain movie, and I believe that God blessed me with my job so that I could enjoy the money I make?

The truth is that it really is Jesus who is sick and in need of medicine. It is Jesus on the news who is starving and living without clean drinking water. In Matthew 25, Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was sick and you visited me. I was naked and you clothed me.” This wasn’t just a nice thing Jesus said to try to get us to help the suffering in this world. He really is the sick, hungry, and naked person that we hear about and see each day. And every day I show Him how much I love Him by how I respond. For the extent that I love my neighbor is the extent that I love my God. Let me say it again, I only truly love God to the extent that I love my neighbor, to the extent that I love the suffering in this world. If I say I love God, and yet show no love or compassion to my neighbor in need, my actions prove me a liar. I don’t really love God. For whatever I do or don’t do for the least of these, I do or don’t do for Jesus. My love for Him is proved by my actions. 1 John 3:17-18 says that if I have material possessions and see my brother in need but have no pity on him, then the love of God cannot be in me. And if I do not actively love my neighbor who I can see, it is impossible for me to love God who I cannot see. I can declare my love for God all I want, but it’s only empty words until I live it out in actions of love towards my neighbor. Oh Lord, may my love for you and others not just be in words and with my tongue, but in actions and in truth!