"Beloved, if thus God loved us, we ourselves also are obligated to be loving one another."
-Beloved. Yes, we are beloved - by John, to be sure, as he has said repeatedly, but more importantly by our heavenly Father. He loved us thus, by sending His Son to be the all-sufficient sacrifice and pay the just penalty for our sins. Thus did God love us.
-And thus we have an obligation. A debt which we owe, and which we must pay. We HAD a debt, a different one, a much bigger one than this. Huge. Unimaginably huge. Unpayable. And God stepped up, Jesus stepped down, and paid it. Our Creditor paid our bill, basically. He picked up the check. So now we owe Him in a different way, but we still owe Him big time. This happens to be the same debt we looked at in 1John 3.16. This debt we pay in installments. Now we pay Him back every day by paying it forward to others. This debt we pay back not because we are guilty, but rather because now we are no longer guilty. And so we do unto others what God did for us. We love them. We love our neighbors, we love our enemies. And especially we love the ones who have also received this love, who are following Jesus next to us, running right beside us - we love them well. Sacrificially. Every day, we go out of our way. And we love them to the end (John 13.1). Just like Jesus. We lay down outlives for them. Whatever that looks like. Cuz they are family.
-But no one-way transaction, this. This is reciprocating love. A shared imperative. Yes, it is a plural command - all of you be doing this together. Be loving one another, John says (but remember, Jesus said it first!). This is community, ongoing and growing common unity. Life lived together, time spent (or rather invested) together, life-on-life. This is sharing, giving AND receiving, meeting one another’s needs - a little bit of messiness and a whole lotta joy (koinonia!). Indeed, this tango takes two. Or more. But certainly more than one. This is not just you out there on the floor shakin your thing all by your lonesome. This is a group dance. A conga line. Or a line dance. That’s right - we’re talking a Holy Ghost Boot Scoot Boogie. This thing simply does not work with just one person. There is no unrequited love here (which as we all know is the WORST kind of love). No, you know what this is - it is synergy. Solo love is a wonderful thing, no doubt, but when two or more begin to get some traction on actually loving one another, then watch out. Step back and watch God get busy. The resulting whole will be so much greater than the sum of their individual parts. Be loving ONE ANOTHER, John says, all y’all. Yes, brothers and sisters, MY brothers and sisters, all of us, WE are a WE and unto this we are co-obligated. It’s a shared debt, and we pay it back together.
-There are more than 100 of these "one anothers" in the New Testament, and every last one of them is just a variation on a theme, on this one basic step, which is, be loving one another. The greatest of these, to be sure. This is where you live, right here. This is home. There is no start the fire, no q-tips, no make the pizza. Don’t need no pizza, they got food there. All I’m saying is that this is not rocket science. This is not complicated. All the best strategies and buildings and programs will fail to rise above the level at which we fulfill this one, most basic command. Let’s make sure with all our doing that we are doing this...
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