I know I've said this a million times: love takes sacrifice. Butterfly feelings and crushes are fun, but that kind of "love" is simply a rush of dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine and will fade away with time. Love takes hard work and dedication. I love my fiancé. However, I didn't meet him and immediately love him a month later, nor did I sit there and force myself to love him or I would be in for some greater issues down the road. It all began with developing intimacy. We would spend hours talking and understanding the heart of one another until we developed a stronger bond. Currently, loving him means that while I really want to move back to my hometown in North Carolina, I will stay back in Tulsa when we get married because he has a set full time job and I won't have one until I graduate in two weeks. Feelings won't pay the bills. Love means that I spend time with him and communicate with him when it's possible. Love means that I'll bless him with a coffee or dinner every now and then because he had a bad week. It takes actual dedication and sacrifice. It means I have to understand his heart and what I could do that will make him happy that day. Love works similarly with my friendships as well. I can be acquaintances with someone. Maybe we're in a class together or study together. Maybe we know each other through facebook or twitter. But loving that friend means that I've developed that intimacy and closeness with them. I may talk to someone frequently on social media sites, but I do not share the same intimacy as I do with my best friends. My best friends I hang out with, get to know on a deeper level, make laugh when they're sad, or give them a shoulder to cry on. Sometimes I've had a test to study for but stayed in my friend's room crying with her because a loved one died. There is always sacrifice involved, whether it's money, time, or rescheduling of our plans. Love is not just feelings.
Here's the point I'm making: We say the word "love" way too often as Christians. It's this cliche word that's used about as much as the word "homework" by a high school algebra teacher. After growing up in the church my whole life, I believed it was utter bullcrap by the time I reached college. I would hear that God "loved" me by the same people who truly believed He sent tsunamis to kill thousands because of whatever sin was most controversial at that time or by people who believed He was an angry God. It didn't go together. God is love. If God is love then everything in 1 Corinthians 13 explains who He is. God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy, is not boastful, is not self-seeking or arrogant, is not conceited, is not rude, is not resentful, is not easily angered, does not keep a record of wrongs or wrongdoings by others. God does not rejoice in injustice, always protects, always believes the best in every person, and is always hopeful in the life of an individual. Do we ever even think about what that means?
Some of the most cruel and pugnacious people use the word "love" just to share their opinions. You love someone so you'll tell them they are living a life of sin without ever even bothering to get to know them. You love someone, so you'll explain their problems to the deans in hopes that they will change them overnight or kick them out of school. You love someone, so you'll spend hours fighting with them about how they're wrong. You love someone enough to point out their flaws and never even bother to see who they are. It's as if people think God gives them extra points in heaven for explaining to a gay guy that they're living a life of sin. That if heaven-forbid you're nice to them without uttering the words "I disagree" in the first five seconds of knowing them that He'll mark your name out and now not allow you into heaven. Perhaps they subconsciously believe God will say "hey, that guy hated himself and spent life depressed and isolated from the Christian community just to later kill himself, but thanks for sticking up for me!" Let's think about this logically. If you know someone that has grown up in a Christian family their whole entire lives and has been told over and over again that it's wrong, do you really think in your mind that they're hearing this information for the first time? That your words are just oh-so-powerful that they'll stop everything and follow your advice from a completely unknowing perspective? It's cockiness. People get so excited to fight about whether its a sin or not that they forget that it's a real human being with the same life goals. They want an intimate relationship with God too. They want to graduate from law school, teach underprivileged children, or travel the world. They have brothers and sisters who have been with them their whole entire lives and know just how powerful, wonderful, and beautiful they are. And if God can look at them with Love, then who the hell are you who is so powerful that you can upstage God in condemnation? If He loves them, then who are you to show them anything except that Love of God? Remember what God did out of love? He sent his only Son to die an excruciating death in our place. Remember that? If you were really doing the work of God, you would be practically taking bullets for them, not fighting with them about how they're wrong and what the Bible says. Many times throwing Bible scripture after dealing with a family who disowned them because of Christianity or friends who think less of them because of the Bible will further throw them into a life of self-hatred and guilt. I don't remember Jesus using God's Word to promote self-hatred. I also don't remember God being the one to kill, steal, and destroy. After reading Job, God doesn't enjoy people who, in attempt to be a "good friend," show God as a mean and vengeful God. That is not love.
There are creatures that sit in front of the throneroom in heaven surrounded by eyes. They sit in front of God and every second they have something new to praise Him about. There is not one person on earth who has or ever will know the full extent of God, and that's insanely awesome. But I do know one thing: He is always love and therefore always good. He doesn't sit there contemplating how to kill some innocent lives via a tsunami because gay marriage was allowed, or send a hurricane because of Mardi Gras. Instead, He knows each and every person that is struggling with gambling, alcoholism, and drug addictions and always sees the good in them no matter what they are doing. And the great thing is, sometimes He sends people like us to minister to them. Not to go up to someone and say "I noticed you are smoking pot. Would you like me to send you a short Wikipedia cut and paste about the dangers of marijuana smoking on your status about April 20th before I gossip about you to others?" but to sacrifice and develop intimacy with them. Getting to know the person involves knowing how to talk to them and show them the love of God. And sometimes we find that things aren't even sins to begin with. Sometimes we realize that they're suffering in the first place because of judgmental people. Sometimes they had some excruciating past that got them into addictions in the first place. But most of them have the same thing in common: very rarely will anyone ever change because of one angry comment or a cut and paste article.
What about atheists? If you're a Christian would you ever decide to change because someone showed you a section of the Qur'an and said you're living against Sharia Law? That's about the same way an atheist feels when you show them Leviticus. Tossing Bible scripture at them is not only pointless, but downright idiotic. But every single religion (or lack thereof) understands love and encouragement. A person is far more likely to listen to you if you develop a relationship. But not a pity relationship or a project in which you'll convert them, but a true relationship. Even if it's a quick conversation at a bar, anyone can always hear how important or wonderful they are. Sometimes all it takes is one person for two minutes to look at them in the eye and give a crap because no one else will. And if they end up being a hateful ignorant person to talk to? Then that's not a person to develop intimacy with. Move along. Keep them in your prayers. But enough of the "I love the sinner but hate the sin" without doing so much as batting an eye to love them in the first place. It's empty language that means nothing without action and becomes part of a cliche which more and more people begin to use without even knowing the meaning of love. Love is powerful. And claiming to love someone is a very powerful comment.
