Loving Like God

“Getting it right” has to do with getting Him right.

What I hope to do here is to take a step back to a question that was asked of me about 10 years ago now. Here it is in context:

I had just arrived late for a leaders gathering in Charlotte, NC. I couldn’t help but note a rather common, almost pleasant look on the faces of those already present – like a group of cats who had just shared a canary.

Before I could take me seat, the presiding leader asked, “Jay, what does the Church in this city look like?”  I hesitated a second or two and then responded,

“It looks like the sum total of all of those who belong to Christ in this city, who know who are theirs in Him. Everything else is show business.”

I share this by way of further introduction to what I would like to blog about here. The kind of intimacy that we are looking for is not likely to be found until we accept Jesus as Lord of relationship, and we need to know and receive one another as from Him. What God calls church is not about “let’s make a deal” on a human level.

In a subsequent leaders meeting, but still back in that same time frame, I shared that, 

“There are places in all of us where we have never been. We can’t get there alone because, if we did, it wouldn’t be the same place as it would be if somebody was there with us. The problem is that there is so much garbage between here and there, we are afraid to go there, either alone or with someone else. We need to have place to put the garbage. That is a place that only Christ can provide, and has provided. ‘Behold, The Lamb of God who takes away the ‘garbage’ of the world.’ He is not only our garbage man, but He wants to make garbage men out of us for the sake of those He has given us to love. We don’t have to take away the garbage of the  whole world, but we are called to, and can, take away the garbage of those He has given us to love in Him.”

Having said that, which I know sounds very nice in theory, I must quickly add that in my experience, it only happens in the intimacy that is possible when He is Lord of relationship. Unless we discover who we are in Him, and in relationship to others in Him, we dare not get that close.

Jesus wants to give you, and has, in fact, promised to give you significant others in Him. Keep your eyes open, because you never know when He is going to give you the gift of another person. Opening the package can easily take a life time. Oh yes, the package can only be opened in the presence of God’s kind of love, the kind He demonstrated, on the day He said, “I love you,” when He and His expectations were nailed to the tree.

We need this revelation if we are ever going to love like God.

“Lovinglikegod” is another way of putting something Jesus said: “As I have loved you…”

Romans 5 is perhaps the clearest statement in the scripture as to just how he loved us. Elsewhere we are told, “This is how we know what love is, Jesus Christ laid down his life for us…”.  Romans 5 tells us under what circumstances He did that:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.    Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” Verses 6-10 

Jesus Christ laid down His life for his enemies. That’s the measureless love of God. Before His death He made a statement about the greatest love known to man up to the point of His death.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  John 15:13 

Viewed from the language of a patent examiner, that would be called “the state of the art.” That was “as good as it gets” before Jesus laid down His life.  Jesus redefined love at the cross. Anything short of this redefined love is unworkable, and unsatisfactory for building His Church.