Romans 5:8 HCSB But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us!
Sometimes people are hard to love. We wonder, how can I love that guy when he has done that to me? It is a mystery, indeed. But God loves us that way, nevertheless. He demonstrates a great deal of sacrifice for those who are his avowed enemies. What is a sinner? The enemy of God. He may not be declared “at war” with God, but he is definitely not willing to submit to God, or to allow God control, or to yield to God’s ways or laws; and he definitely will not allow God to save his sinful, truth-rejecting soul by faith in Christ Jesus. Still, God has loved us in giving us His Son as Savior to those who will let themselves be saved – regardless of what they have done.
So for me, and for you, that means the hardest part of being a Christian is to love sinners. Their sins can be a glaring defect in their personality or character. Their sins can stand as a barrier to our natural instincts, and a wall to our relationship with them. Sometimes, prudence can warn us that our lives may be in danger if we love them. But what, truly what, do we have to lose by loving them? Is our life really in this world? Or is it in the eternal with Christ? As missionary Jim Elliott is famous for saying, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” We cannot keep our life anyway, so why work so hard to do so? Once we are saved, we cannot lose that. What makes us think we can gain a thing by keeping our life – and our eternal life? We were not saved for that. We were saved to love sinners. When we put this into perspective, it changes how we live – and how we love sinners.
Greg Yount
Good post, Greg. Hope that you're doing well.
ReplyDelete