I’ve been reading this book about Christians and cynicism, “Faith Without Illusions”. The main premise is that Christians should not (and really cannot) be cynics because cynicism is a lack of hope and the fundamental pillar of Christianity is hope.

I’m reading it because I am a cynic and God is challenging me to do something about it.

But lately (and especially the last couple of weeks) I have been bumping into cynicisms best friend.

Jaded

I really like that word. It’s sharp and cutting and edgy.

Which is weird because I’ve seen jaded.

Jaded is dull. Jaded is tired.

Jaded is tired of looking for hope and has resorted to looking for some sort of excitement in the problems, in the hurt, in the mud…in the sin.

Sin used to break our hearts…now, we feed on it.

Once upon a time, we used to cry at actions that brought people down…now, all we want is to see someone fall, to trip and stumble because then we have something to talk about.

Because then we have (more) reason to be cynical and down.

When was the last time you heard about someone sinning and it crushed you?

Yeah, me too…

Seeing sin in others should produce sadness, not a sick excitement that feeds our supreme need to be “entertained”.

Am I Jonah? Sitting on the edge hoping to see God’s judgment fall?
Or do I recognize that that fallen person is me and that I’ve lost count how many times He has picked me up?

Anyone can come along and kick someone when they are down.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

This is what God does and has done since the garden…He takes the broken and puts it back together. And day after day, He gives us a chance to be a part of it.

Maybe we used to be less about us…I need Him to restore that in me.

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
~Matthew 3: 7-8

I love John the Baptist. I love that he knew his role, that he was always pointing to Jesus, even though that took any attention away from him.

But I re-read this passage the other morning and just like every other time I read it, it made me a little uncomfortable.

“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance”

The religious people of his day come out to where he is baptizing people and he calls them out. He calls them snakes. He tells them that the way they are doing things isn’t sufficient.

So, John, what you are saying is that there is more to it than saying “the prayer” and continuing to live the same life?

Do I repent so that I have a clear conscience, to temporarily feel better about my standing before God?
Or am I really agreeing with God about how ugly my sin is?

Checklist spirituality.

Do I have a passion, a desire, to appear holy or do I have a passion for transformation…in me and in the people around me?

If I am seeing my sin the way God does, it should produce in me the desire to see the world as God does. He transforms us so that we can join Him in transforming everything else. Not so I can sit around with people just like me basking in the glow of how good I am.

I read in a book that a man called Christ went about doing good. It is very disconcerting to me that I am so easily satisfied with just going about.
~Toyohiko Kagawa

I know who I am.

I have spent the 36 years with me…I have seen what I do, I know what thoughts go through this head.

I have the clearest view of me, no one knows me better than I do.

So, I don’t get it when someone has a different view of me.

It’s easier when others see us the way that we see us, for us to be coming from the same place. We can “control” things there. And we don’t have to worry about any expectations.

This is our facebook life, right? This is who I want you to relate to me as.

But, there are always people who violate that. There is the person who has decided that that isn’t who you are. The person who, for whatever reason, has just decided that they don’t like you.

Or, even harder, the person who sees you in a better light than you see yourself.

But, isn’t that our job?

I have always had a low opinion of myself…driven by fear and pride. I have to work hard because I feel like I need to earn things. I don’t think I’m good enough for most people. I’m quiet. I would rather talk about you and your world than about me because the more you know of me the less likely it is that you will want to talk to me again.

So, when someone treats me like they are better than I am…it’s actually easier for me to accept than when someone, who I would label that way, treats me as a friend.

When people act like we expect them to, when they wear our glasses, they fuel our perceptions and agree with us about ourselves. And that makes those views stronger.

It’s the outliers that weaken it.

That’s our job.

God has called us to see people with new eyes. With transformed eyes.

What are things in that person that I am agreeing with by how I relate to them? Am I pouring gas on their anger, on their fragile heart, on their fears, on their pain…on their sin?

And maybe we think that we don’t have any influence on people like that…”it was just a short conversation”…”I don’t really even know them”…”we always joke like that”…
I would challenge you to think back over the last day and conversations you have had and I would bet you can pick out one (and probably many more) comment or phrase that has stuck with you…that has given credence to what you believe about yourself. Because the stronger those beliefs are, the more we can twist almost anything that is said to fit into the box we’ve made to define us.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
2 Corinthians 5: 15-17

How do we see people through God’s eyes?

I think those verses tell us. We treat people as new creations…whether they are or not.

If they are in Christ, we need to be about fueling the new creation in them…because we know how hard it is to distance ourselves from the old man. Transformation inside of us is a miracle. To be a part of that transformation in others is also a miracle.

Even if someone isn’t in Christ our job is to see them as they would be with Him. Isn’t that how Jesus viewed us? He didn’t wait for us to get it together before He showed us love (“while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”). He saw what we would be when we were transformed, when we were related too in love. And that’s what he wants from us. That’s how we love our neighbor.

I know I have this power in people because I have abused it to hurt them. I have played on their self-perceptions to keep them in their place.

I want to break someone’s glasses today.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Heb. 13:8)

Jesus Christ is “the same”…

I know that is supposed to be a good thing…that when you memorize verses like this they are supposed to encourage you because you are getting to know His character.

But, I’m tired of the same.
Everything is “the same”.

How easy is it to grow weary of something? of anything?
God. People. Things. Ideas. Passions.

• People who have been married for 40 years decide they don’t want to be together anymore.
• The perfect job has reverted to being just a job.
• Your first baby was a miracle, but by the time this one comes it’s “routine”.
• A month passes since you have talked to your friend and you wonder what the problem is, another month passes and you casually write them off.
• You go to church only because it’s Sunday.
• You pray, playing the odds that sheer volume will cause God to give you one of the things on your list.
• The cause you have fought for, you have spent countless hours, days, weeks, months, years to further has seen too much sustained resistance that you have resigned and nowadays you focus on your comfort.

We want a “dynamic” life. And God wants that for us too.

We want to be moved, to be stirred, to be energized.
And we have bought the lie that says that comes from the next thing. That what we know now, what we have seen, experienced, tasted, lived was for that moment and now we have to find something else to “do that for us”.

After all, we deserve that.

We want to be entertained.

Consistency is hard.
I would go so far as to say that consistency is impossible.

We want God to create new ways to speak to us.
And He wants us to look at the mountains and tremble in awe.

I have become convinced that the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2), the transformation that needs to happen in me is to see the joy of His consistency.

Yes, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
How incredible is that?

And how much do I need that?
I don’t have to find new ways to show myself worthy of Him. To entertain Him.
He loved me yesterday. He loves me today. And tomorrow, He will love me again.

So, when all of the people and all of the stuff around me is radically dependent on emotion and swinging to the left and the right with the wind that day. I want to be found consistent.

Consistently loving.
Consistently worshipping.
Consistently letting joy in.
Consistently letting joy out.

I don’t need to see something happen today to make it “awesome”.
The One who made today is awesome and I need to see that.

So, it’s January 5th…the new year is just underway…I’m supposed to be hopeful and excited because everything is “new”.

I have never really understood the new year phenomena. I have never seen a reason to celebrate the calendar flipping or the need to buy a new calendar for that matter.
But yet, each new year I feel the twinge of hope, the possibility of change stirs something inside of me.

But, I’m guessing that we all have the same reaction come March (or mid-January).
The disappointment sets in.

For me, it’s already happening.

Things aren’t different or “new”.

So, I sit discouraged…frustrated…over tired.

And when I feel this way, there is nothing new. There is only the old. The same. The comfortable.

I have started calling it my “go-to’s”…
My go-to thought patterns (“I really do suck at every area of my life”)
My go-to reactions (cynicism, hyper-criticalness)
My go-to persona (closing in on myself, “hiding”)
And when you combine them, they all push me to my go-to sins.

And sitting here under the clouds of my go-to’s, I feel hopeless. There is no change. There is truly nothing new under the blocked-out sun.

I don’t know what your go-to’s are, but I would bet that you have them too. What do you start saying to yourself when you are discouraged? Where do you find yourself at the end of a stressful or a disappointing day?

The ironic thing is that what we are doing over and over, this go-to mentality, is surrendering.

Surrender.

In my experience that word has two connotations – 1. France, 2. What we are supposed to be doing to Jesus and His power.

I sing the songs about surrender at church (“all to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give”) and I want that…I want to give up control. I want to get to the point where I can stop thinking and planning and just instinctively find myself in Him.
But, I can’t seem to get there.
And I tell myself that surrender is too hard. I just don’t know how to do it.

Which, today, I know is crap.

I do know how to surrender. I do it all the time.

I surrender to sin. I give up control. I stop thinking and planning and give myself over to it all the time, all the go-to time.

So, what I don’t need is another thing to pile on top of this inverted triangle – another attempt to fix things or another new practice. Because every time it falls, that’s just more weight crushing me.
I don’t need another how-to, I need another go-to.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
~ Romans 6: 11-14

“Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness” – not really a passage that you could confuse what it means.
That means our go-to’s have to go.
We have been offering ourselves to sin…surrendering.
Now it’s time to stop.

How do we do that?
“offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness”
Spiritual replacement therapy.

Go-to thought patterns need to be His truth.
Go-to actions need to push us out of ourselves, not to be focused on us and “medicating” our pain or hurt. When are a part of healing others, He heals us.

The go-to sinning can be replaced with go-to worship of God. He is the only one that we should be submitting to. Because He isn’t using our submission to crush us, but to heal us and to heal others. When we submit to sin we are choosing death for us and those around us.

We need to find this new base in our lives or we will continue to be crushed by the fact that we end up in our go-to sin today, this month, next month, over and over…until next January when we “try” it again.

i’m supposed to die

today

not in another fifty or sixty years

actually, it’s supposed to have happened already

You say that i should die to my sin

but i don’t

it seems like every day it crushes me and i have to start over

and You say this isn’t how i’m to live

You say that i am keeping alive something that needs to die

giving hell mouth-to-mouth resuscitation

because i love me

more than i love You

i don’t want to say that…that doesn’t make me look good

i don’t not want to say it because it shows who i really am…i want to not say it because of what other people will think of me saying it

and that proves my point again

i want what i want…what i want to think, do, say…

what You want is for me to love You and love other people

what i want is to love me…to “love” other people when it’s convenient for me…and to “love” You when it’s appropriate for my audience

i want freedom to be angry

i want freedom to change the truth

i what freedom to pursue whatever shiny thing catches my eye or my mind

i want freedom to speak about people and judge them by my ever-changing criteria

i want freedom to control my time how i want to

i want freedom from conscience

i want freedom to indulge

i want freedom to be me

but You say that isn’t me

You say there is another way

and every once in awhile, i glimpse it

i see this “other” me

and it feels like the freedom You talk about

but then I trade it in…and count my thirty pieces

so i ask You again

how do i live?

and You tell me to die

A couple of us have read the much discussed “Love Wins”…here are our thoughts:

Andy:
Why did you read “Love Wins”?
I read it primarily because I enjoy Rob Bell’s books. I may not always agree with what he has to say, but I love that he isn’t afraid to ask a hard question or two. I’ve done a great job in being passive with my faith. Letting certain concepts and thoughts and things slip by the wayside. I think that we have to be careful how we process things though. If we remember the Garden in Genesis, that’s basically what Satan asked Eve; “did God really say that?”

Is this book about universalism?
I don’t believe so. I do see the parts that may be taken as such, so I went back and read through the entire portion of the book a few times and I think that helped communicate Bell’s point a little better. There was a portion about the Elect (a Christianese term for Christians. A people who are set apart from others) and at first the section seemed to dictate on the contrary to what Jesus and the Bible speaks of. After going back the few times, I would suggest that Bell meant more along the lines of the Pharisee way to salvation. “You don’t fit our mold for God’s grace, so you’re out.” A common day thing that could illustrate that is something I’ll call denominationalism. People of a certain denomination may believe that their group is the only way and if you’re not part of their denomination, you’re Hellbound. The thing is it’s not about an elite group as we see it, Catholic, Evangelical, Lutheran, Methodist, etc. The picture is about Jesus and what he’s done and is doing in people. No burdensome rules. No titles. Just Jesus.

What do you think of the evangelical church’s response to the book?
I wasn’t a big fan of the initial reaction of the evangelicals. I only heard of a few who wrote to Bell and discussed where they disagreed with him. It seems as though the usual reaction was to rebuke it before even reading it and not even communicate with the author about it. Not to say that a situation may arise where something needs to be shot down immediately. Times like that do come up.

What’s your response after reading the book?
I’d recommend it. Read it with your Bible, look up the scriptures mentioned in the book, try it against God’s word. Also, ask for a humble heart when reading it. There are books that I’ve read where I wouldn’t hang out with the author, but God taught me things in them.

Did you lose your salvation when you purchased this book?
Ohhhh. Most certainly. (Sarcastic tongue sticky out face). I was stretched. Confused. Ultimately encouraged.

Brandon:
Why did you read “Love Wins”?
I read it because I have read all of Rob Bell’s other books, watched many of the Nooma videos and have attended two of his tours…in other words, because I’m interested in his perspective on hell.

Is this book about universalism?
I don’t think that is the point of the book, but it is the easiest attack to make on the book. I think the book is the same call that Rob Bell has made in his other books and many sermons – what you do here matters. You can choose here and now heaven or hell…it doesn’t have to wait for eternity. I guess that’s what frustrates me about the whole controversy of the book – now even the people who choose to read the book are going into it with a mindset of looking for the universalist pieces of it. We’ve managed, as Christians, to (again) take something that has so much to teach us and ostracize it.
I grew up fearing Christ’s return and trying to bury the treasure that I had found so that I wouldn’t “lose” it. At the conclusion of the book, Bell says, “Jesus reminds us in a number of ways that it is vitally important we take our choices here and now as seriously as we possibly can because they matter more than we can begin to imagine.” To me, that’s the message of the book…we have things to do here and now as members of Christ’s kingdom.

What do you think of the evangelical church’s response to the book?
I tried hard to not listen to or read much of the criticism of the book, but then I picked up Time magazine and read their story about it. Basically what I got out of it was that pastors and evangelical leaders are upset because they are afraid that Bell’s book will take away their #1 marketing technique – scaring people. I know that’s not an across-the-board view, but the fact that it is someone’s view scares me way more than universalism. If we don’t have the fear of hell, why would anyone want to come to church? Don’t tell me that you think that a real relationship with the Creator and with His Son, who purchased my salvation would draw the broken…that love could bring people in the doors!

We are quick to question someone who would believe that everyone gets to heaven but we don’t bat an eye when Christians put on a big stage show that climaxes in an (obviously orchestrated) emotional peak to get people to say a rote prayer and then pack up and leave them flailing about trusting the fact that they said “the prayer”…who cares what the rest of their life looks like (or that we have spiritually raped them).

What’s your response after reading the book?
I would say it was the same as reading his other books – there are some things that I don’t agree with as my faith stands now. But, I appreciate the questions, the opportunity to re-examine things that I have taken at someone else’s word and most of all the reminder that God has us here now for a reason, that life isn’t the waiting room for heaven, that instead is an apprenticeship for there.

Did you lose your salvation when you purchased this book?
ok, so maybe this question is a little sarcastic. Ok, maybe a lot sarcastic. But, unfortunately, I have been burned by the Bell-bashing before (wow, that’s a lot of b’s)…people have literally questioned my faith because I went to hear him teach. We all need to remember that every book written by man is written by man…we compare it to the Word of God and we grow in our knowledge of Him as we wrestle with what it really means to bear His name and follow Him.

I was at a seminar just over a week ago listening to a pastor give a very impassioned talk about the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and our leadership and the guy next to me was looking at Facebook. He was doing that because this style of preaching (Amen! Hallelujah!) is not his preferred style.

Unfortunately, I get that…because I have done that so may times.

I have ignored hearing from God and being reminded of Him and His power, choosing instead to hold on to my perceptions and my biases.

How dare I decide how and through whom God can choose to speak? Isn’t He the Creator? If I believe that, shouldn’t I assume that He can and will use whatever medium He wants to to communicate?

Would I have listened to John the Baptist? Elijah? Jeremiah? Paul? Samuel? The list could literally go on and on…
Are we this pre-programmed that things have to fit in to our “style” for us to hear? Have we become desensitized to the unrestrained freedom of the Spirit to move because we can and do have everything in our lives set up to entertain and focus on us?

It can be subtle…it can be words or phrases that turn us off (doing life together) and shut us down. It can be the delivery of a speaker. It can be the way the speaker looks. It can be where they are from. It can be what others have said about them. It can and is…anything…we have so many “choices”. But what are we missing?

Truth is truth…and often we have mislabeled cynicism as discernment.
If we don’t want to hear it from that person or in this situation, God must not be speaking.

Am I spending more time judging style or accuracy according to God’s Word?
Do I believe it because it was said loudly (what am I, Congress?) or because it was the Word of the Spirit?

It’s not that we don’t expect God to move…it’s that we don’t allow Him to move.

Sometimes I think we wouldn’t know revival if it kicked us in the groin. We say we want to hear from Him, but we also want to be the one to decide how that message comes. Isn’t this why we so fiercely defend some preachers and throw others under the bus?

God has specifically chosen the foolish things of the world to make Himself known…not the polished and veneered. We talk about how God’s people should be excellent and I agree, we should be striving to do the best for Him (not for us and for our name), but we also need to recognize that God is seen and God is real when we deal in truth, not facades.
But we have made this bed and we are now lying (literally) in it. We want this certain level of presentation, professionalism, poise, etc…and all of that takes precedence over hearing from God.

God wants to speak to us through the works of His hands.

And He can redeem anything.

That broken relationship can be an avenue for Him to speak.
That old hymn might slap you upside the head.
That non-energetic pastor may be speaking the words you need to heal.
That overly energetic pastor is speaking the challenge we all need to hear.

Let’s try it for a week…being open to God’s words in any and every forum…if we search for Him, I don’t think we will be disappointed.

Father, I’m sorry for not allowing You move in me and to move me in ways that you want to…please forgive me for being myopic and for limiting You.

Growing up in the church I heard a lot about how to love God. What it looks like to love God.
You go to church.
You read the bible.
You pray.
You sing songs about God.
You go to Sunday school.
You tell your friends about God.
You drink coffee in between Sunday school and the church service.
You lift your hands up in the air when you sing hallelujahs.
You help with youth group.
You tell your friends about Jesus.
You teach at youth group.
You play your bass guitar on Sunday mornings for the worship service.
You play basketball at the church gym.
You don’t curse when you brick 5 three pointers in a row at the church gym.
You feed homeless people.
You give the church your money.
You give missionaries your money.
You become a missionary.
You home school your kids.
You go to a Christian college.
You go to see you at the pole on your high school campus.
You pray in the hallways at lunch with your friends.
You tell your friends that their actions don’t look like Jesus actions.
You wear your WWJD bracelet.
You ask WWJD at least once daily, either to yourself or your friends.
You simply don’t sin.
Follow those 10 commandments.
You help your neighbor out.
You buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a solid fence that keeps you safe.
You post bible verses on your facebook wall.
You forward emails that proclaim you are not ashamed of Jesus!

This list is really endless and if you ever have any questions about how to effectively love God I’m sure you could just google it and get a plethora of answers. Or just ask any good church-goer. They always seem to have a way of doing it.

But lately, that isn’t enough for me. I’ve done the majority of the things in that list. More than once even. I’ve “sacrificed” a lot of time for some of those things. But I still feel like my love is cheap.

I’m the dad that sends my kid a birthday card 3 weeks late every other year, missing the years in between.
Or I’m the guy who only spends Monday mornings from 8am-8:15am and Wednesdays from 4:45pm-5Pm with my girl and spend the rest of my time with all the other girls out in this world.
Or I’m the friend that only calls when I need something you have.
Or I’m the friend who only calls when everyone else is busy.
Or I’m the employee who is more concerned about taking my next break than I am getting my project finished.

It’s cheap love. In fact, nobody would call those instances love. I try to portray the image that I love (enter any name here), but really I’m just loving myself. I’m trying to make myself look good. I’m trying to gain the attention of other people and have them approve of what I do. Have them love me.

That list up there…more times than not I do it because I want a pat on the back. I want to be noticed for my efforts. I want to be perceived as good. I want to be right. My motive is less about loving and more about being accepted.

Maybe I’m alone in my lack of love but I’m just trying to be honest about this. I have struggled to write something about how to love God and it became glaringly evident that I just don’t really love God most of the time with most of the things I do in my life.

And I think the biggest obstacle with that is I don’t know God. I know things about Him that I’ve learned over the years. But I’ve done a really good job of taking what I’ve learned and formed it into what I want it to be. Or interpreted certain scriptures in a way that were pleasing to me and my way of thinking. It read how I wanted scripture to read.

Basically what I’ve done is distorted God to look like me. I’ve made it so God lines up with what I want to believe, what I want to be right, and to justify what I want to do.

I haven’t been responsible with the knowledge I do have of God. I’ve used it for my personal benefit. I don’t use what I know of God to continue to search Him out. To marvel at His mysterious ways. To stand in awe of Him. I use it to be right with my friends and family. I want to know about God so that I look good as opposed to actually knowing the character of God. It’s not usually about bringing me into a deeper relationship with Him.

So I guess this is where I try to change that. This is the part where I try to gain knowledge and understanding about God, not so that I can be right, but so that I can love Him. If that happens, if I make it about loving Him as opposed to looking smart…it should change the way I live. Change the way I read the word of God, change the way I pray, change the way I view the church, change the way I view my friends, my enemies, my coworkers.

I’m going to start with Proverbs. Read through it. Study it. See what that knowledge and understanding can show me about God. See how God views the world. What is good and what is destructive. I’m going to try and write about it as I go through but I don’t know how often it will be. But it would be really cool if anyone who is reading this wants to go through it as well. Shedding ourselves, our thoughts, our selfish desires, our manipulative ways…to read about these wise sayings that reveal who God is. Making this about God. Which will be the first time in quite a while for me.

Comment about what you are finding. I’ll do the same.

Altruistic love is void of all selfishness. You don’t need a bible verse to tell you this or some great philosopher to write about this. The greatest acts of love on this earth are born out of a selfless nature. There has never been a selfish act that resulted in love. If you choose not to see this in your own life…look at someone who has hurt you…was the root of the hurt selfishness? Look at someone who has helped you…was the root of it selflessness? Why would their selfishness hurt us but ours wouldn’t hurt them?

God is love. God is also righteous (both good and awesome). And many more things…but if He is both of those things then you can’t have one without the other. You can’t have righteousness without love and you can’t have love without righteousness. You can’t love and be wicked. You can’t be good and selfish. You can’t love someone while lying to them. I think we understand this connection more than we actually talk about. So what we do is we make our own “good” so that we can give the impression that we also “love” others. I’m going to lie to protect that person. But back to thought number one…if it becomes a selfish act in any way…there is no love involved. So no matter what we create in our minds as “good” we can’t create love. You’re going to hurt someone if you are being selfish…even if you think you are being good. So you have to do what is right in order to properly love.

So how can love be just a feeling? Doing what is right a lot of times goes against how we feel. I want to sleep in until 1 and lay on the couch every Saturday. That is how I feel. If I did that nothing in the house would be taken care of. The yard would go to crap. The house would be a mess. Logan would be fending for himself. Those things aren’t good. But let’s take it a step further. Let’s say MLK Jr started to feel pressure from his opposition and knew his life and the lives of his family could be in danger. If he had based “doing right” on feelings…how different would the world look today? and who would really think it was better? But once again, we have created our own sense of “good” so that we can do what feels good. And not have to feel guilty about it. But when we are concerned about our own feelings, how is that loving people? If our own feelings become king, then what are we doing to the people around us? Are we ignoring them unless them bring something to my table? Drinking makes people feel good. So they keep doing it. And doing it. And doing it. and they hang out with people that feel the same way. But it becomes a habit focused on ourselves. I’m doing this to make myself feel good. Losing a sense of the people around us. You can’t effectively love someone else when you have no sense of them.

And what about the second part…if we love, we will do what is right…right? If we truly loved people, we would be more righteous? If we were focused on loving…it would no longer be a matter of “what do I want to do” or “how does this make me feel” but more of a mindset of “am I loving this person” or “how is this decision going to affect the people around me” Love will move us in the direction of good. Love moves us closer to God therefore moving us closer to righteousness. So if I continually find myself in situations where the outcome is bad…am I loving? Not saying it won’t be hard…but loving someone, truly loving them, won’t be bad. It won’t always be easy, but in the long run, if it is love…it will have good results. MLK Jr again…his life could not have been easy. He wrote a book called “the strength to love” and in it he talks about how it was not easy. But he loved, he did good things…and in the end, even though his life was not easy or end with a fairy tale ending…very good things happened because of his love. Because of the way he lived his life.

Love can’t exist outside a community. One thing to not be lost in this is that we need to be loved just as much as we need to love. If our community is made up of friends with selfish intentions, we aren’t being loved. And we probably aren’t loving. At least, in my experience, I’m not loving. It’s easier for me to justify my selfish living when I surround myself with people who do the same. Who doesn’t want to have the neighbor who notices we forgot to take our trash out to the street on Monday morning so they do it for us? Just because. Or how about if I see my neighbors kid playing in his yard and the ball rolls out into the street and he starts to chase after it not seeing the car coming so I jump out to catch him? A neighborhood concerned about the well-being of other people. I’m going to shovel my neighbors walk. I’m going to give him half the batch of cookies I made. I’m going to water their lawn when they go out of town. I’m going to listen to them when they had a bad day at work. Actually listen. We need true community because we need to love AND be loved. So, what is the focus of your community? Loving each other? Or is it maybe just having a good time? I’m bound to think that if it’s “having a good time” it becomes a selfish mindset. Because Alan’s idea of a good time might be different than my idea of a good time. In fact, Alan’s idea of a good time could be my idea of a horrible time, or even a hurtful time. Or what happens if your family just broke down or experienced some sort of heart ache? Maybe your community surrounds you for a little while but that isn’t really “fun” so if it’s a long heartbreak, you could easily be forgotten until you start having their type of fun again. Which could mean ignoring big problems with your family. Sweeping them under the rug…all to continue being a part of that community that wants very little to do with your heart ache. But if you have a community centered around loving each other…you will get love and probably have some good times in there. I mean, how could love not be a good time? It is the one thing that it seems like everyone is gunning for, right? And during those hard moments, the heart wrenching events in life…that community of love, it’s going to surround you. and it will be there for days at a time, weeks at a time, years at a time. They don’t leave. They don’t leave during the heart break and they don’t leave after the healing.

Maybe I’m wrong, but the best love stories are centered around a selfless desire. A community that loves unconditionally. People that strive to do what is right for all people, not what they feel is right for themselves.

But we continually think that maybe it will be different for us…so who are we hurting in the process?