“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NLT)
Do you know how to love? I’m an old man and I still mess up at love nearly every day. Love isn’t unilateral, in the sense that we can love everyone the same way. Sometimes love demands that we speak up, but at other times it means to be quiet. There are times love looks like being proactive and other times when it means doing nothing. Sometimes love looks like standing our ground and fighting with every ounce of energy we possess, but other times it demands we walk away.
So, I’ll ask again: “Do you know how to love?” Would you agree love is a long-term process that has a sometimes very long learning curve? In a Family Life devotional I read by Ben McGuire, he wrote: “We have a rule in our house: ‘The Habitat Rule.’ As long as the bugs or pests stay in their natural habitat, they live. But once they cross that line between nature and our home, they become a threat or a nuisance, and they die a swift, merciless death.”
And you may be thinking, as I did when I first read those words: “How on earth could that possibly relate to anything related to spiritual growth and development?” But then he said: “In moments of stubbornness or fragility, I can erect those same kinds of barriers in my marriage. As long as my wife stays outside my established perimeter, we’re good. But if she violates the threshold with uninvited personal questions, constructive criticism, or helpful correction, she crosses over into the category of threat or nuisance.
The last thing I need, though, is for her to remain distant. As much as I might try to push her away, I need her to press into my heart. Obviously, she is no cockroach. God created us for intimacy on all levels, especially in our marriage. My wife knows me better than any person on this earth. She sees me at my worst and doesn’t ever give up … because she loves me. It’s out of love that she is willing to risk crossing my sometimes-well-fortified perimeter, to risk being hurt by me.
It’s because I know she loves me that I should tear down my defenses and invite her in. ‘The Habitat Rule’ will keep your house insect or rodent free. But it will kill your marriage.” It can also kill other relationships.
As believers it’s important that we set boundaries, how else can we guard our purity of heart, mind, soul, and body? But love sometimes has to cross a barrier that someone has built to keep us out, in order to share with them the truth of the Gospel.
Jesus crossed a lot of “boundaries” the Pharisees and others had built to protect their “religion,” and we too often do the same thing in an effort to protect what we believe is truth. However, there can be a very thin line between “protecting our beliefs” and closing the door to new revelation that God is trying to teach us. Just because someone doesn’t believe exactly like us doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong.
Yes, of course, there are things people believe with all their heart that are clearly wrong, so if what they believe, and that which they’re trying to convince us to believe, doesn’t coincide with the truth of Scripture and the Truth of who Jesus is and taught, our love for God demands that we eradicate it from our belief system as quickly as we’d kill a rat that gets into our house. But we must still love the one who holds that wrong belief just as Jesus loves us in our quest for Truth.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 