What Wondrous Love Is This?

October 2010

God makes a claim on every Christ follower’s life. The claim is nothing less than if we cooperate with God, he will shape our lives in such a way as to make us conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). No greater claim will we know. No lesser claim will do.

The whole New Testament urges us to be like our Master in his incarnation. This means that we are to be present and to live in an attitude of humility before all people and before God. We also are called to live foot-washing lives. Armed with basin and towel, we go to make disciples and baptize followers into the Trinitarian reality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to teach them to obey all he commanded.

God also imprints every regenerate soul with his love. To be Christian and loving are inseparable. When love is absent from conversations, from behavior, from actions, Christ is grieved; His Holy Spirit sheds tears of sorrow.

Last month I wrote about loving God. This month I write about loving others. The question I attempt to answer is “What wondrous love is this?” Christian love is nothing like any other love. It is imitative. John urges that to claim to live in Christ means to walk the same path as Christ, the path of love (1 John 2:6). Paul also urges the church in Ephesus (5:1) to imitate God as beloved children. It is a most natural thing that children who are loved well come to imitate the love they receive, hopefully sooner than later.

Here then is Paul’s pressing command in Ephesians 5:2 “live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”A tall order indeed! My heart is guiding me to say three things about this love.

First, love is never optional for the disciple. Living a life of love is a command to behave ethically, to act rightly or lovingly toward others. In case you’re wondering, it is not natural for us to love our enemies and those who hurt our loved ones or us. It is counter intuitive to love oppressive people who harm the innocent. Yet the command is absolute, not subject to any condition.

How do we get there? How do we do the impossible? Loving our enemies, being humble, or turning the other cheek, or blessing our persecutor and those who oppress us are not within our reach without serious training. It takes practice or discipline. We cannot love our enemies directly, or be humble directly. But when the Holy Spirit, by means of graceful habits, takes our training for godliness and enables us to do what we are not able to do in our own strength, it becomes possible for us to live a life of love. When we practice praying, reflections in solitude, deep reading of Scripture (letting our souls be examined by the truths we read in the Bible), and serving others, these disciplines or means of grace help us indirectly to love our enemies. The command becomes easy and the burden light just as Christ promised (Matthew 11:28-31).

Second, love is sacrificial. We love just as Christ loved us. Call it cross-love as Henri Nouwen does, or as John Stott calls it “Calvary love” This kind of love is a suffering love, a pain filled love if need be. Often love needs to be costly to be imitative of divine love. Loving the lovable costs nothing. Loving the hard to love (such as you and I) demands much of us. Love at times demands that we die to ourselves. What wondrous love is Christ’s love? It “caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul.”

Many parents who follow Christ suffer at the hands of prodigal children. This is more common than we care to admit in our lives and churches. I count myself in that number.  A dilemma beyond our control is hurled our way. The temptation is to put limits on our love, to become self-protective, and insulate our shattered selves. We want to guard our broken hearts and safeguard our frayed emotions. We get that sinking down feeling (only a feeling mind you) that we are beneath God’s righteous frown. It is then that we remember how Christ laid aside his crown for our soul. And we renew our commitment to love till it hurts. That is imitative love. It is love worthy of the Lord and imitative of his ways. To love Christ’s way is to be pained, to pay a price, to risk unrequited love.

Third, the love Paul urges upon us is pleasing to God. It has the fragrance of Christ; it smells like a sacrifice that pleases God. Love of the kind that Christ loved us with and the kind we are asked to imitate is praiseful. When the sweet smelling aroma of love meanders heavenwards, the beauty of God’s character is shown. When sacrificial loving takes place, God’s will and kingdom are present on earth as it is in heaven. When the last teardrop of the night wets our pillowcase in the dark night of our souls, heavenly love is all ears. The assurance of being heard is worth all the praise we can muster.

Loving others is necessary, it is a costly and beauty-filled way of giving praise to God. This is the way we have been loved by Christ. Those who walk with the Master train themselves to be Godlike in loving others.

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