The weapon of love

The ultimate weapon of mass construction is love.  That is an opinion I would defend to the death.  I may not be a fighter, but I am a lover, and am a firm believer that in the end love rules everything.  What good is an educator or job creator if they don’t love their students or employees well?  That’s not to say they’re useless, but if we’re focused on construction, then love for God and love for others must be our foundation.  Without it, our efforts are in vain.

Love covers a multitude of sins.  God extends love to us by giving us His Son and by giving us everything we could ever hope for.  He gives us a community to belong to, family to love on and a place to grow up.  The other day for devotions we were reading 1 John 3.  I literally got choked up as I read it and went over what it meant to me with my partner for devotions that morning.  The first verse alone is mind-blowing.  His version said the love that the Father extended towards us but I love the NIV version for this verse that states the love the Father has lavished on us.

Lavish isn’t a verb we’re very accustomed to using, is it?  I typically think of bathing for some reason, maybe my brain does a trick with lather and lavish, I’m not really sure.  Either way it paints a great picture of love being lavished on us in such a way that we’re quite literally bathing in it.  That may sound weird I realize as I just read what I wrote a second time, but hang with me for a second.  If we bathe in the ocean, we are completely enveloped in the ocean.  Similarly, if we bathe in God’s lavish love, we’re completely enveloped in it.

From that starting point, we are able to extend love to those around us who desperately need it.  Some people think we need to just preach the Word, some have even called it the ‘Biblical gospel.’  We do absolutely need to share the gospel with our mouths, but as another passage in 1 John reminds us, let us love not just in words but in action and in truth.  What’s the best way to love someone?  I don’t know the answer to be honest, but I think it largely depends on what the person needs.  To answer the possible next question, yes, I am talking about a felt needs ministry.  I don’t really see any other type as being all that effective. 

Some people just need to be listened to, as in the case of some of the homeless people I’ve taken to lunch.  Others need to be pushed to dig deeper, as in the case of some of my kindergarten students in the past as well as junior high boys at a church camp (you may or may not be surprised at the alarming number of similarities between those two subsets by the way.)  For ex-cons, a great way to love them isn’t to get them involved in more and more Bible studies but rather to provide them with jobs.

My two most recent roommates here in Yangon see differently on just about every subject under the sun.  I challenged both of them to check their hearts when they’re arguing.  Are they coming from a place of love or a motivation to prove themselves right?  I still fall into that trap to this day, so I was simultaneously preaching to myself.  If I can help prevent it in other young men at least to a degree than I should at all costs do so.