The Risk, Reward, and Glory of Love

“For God so loved the World, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever, believeth in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life”- John 3:16

The idea that a perfect and holy God loves an unholy and imperfect world seems absurd. To think, that a God who has never done wrong, would love a world full of people who have done nothing but wrong is certainly a miracle. Today while counseling a member of our church dealing with depression and breaking free from their past, this thought came to me “here we go again”… over the past several years, I’ve dealt with so many people who have proclaimed themselves to be followers of Jesus, yet do not live a life that lines up with God’s word. As a Pastor, there’s always the struggle of believing the best about people and seeing the gold in the midst of the dirt. This requires supernatural grace. However, today as I dealt with this person, I was alarmed by my own thoughts “here we go again”. Quickly, the holy spirit reminded me that this is not the approach of Christ. I was then reminded that not only does God so love the world, but He loves the world unconditionally….

The Risk:

Unconditional love is without doubt the most comforting, confusing, and holy attribute of God. To love without any conditions. To love without being loved in return, further to love with being hated in return, even further, to love with being hated unjustly in return. And such is the case with God and His love for the world and mankind. Without reason, men have shunned God’s love, denied God’s existence, blamed God for all that is wrong, hated Him without cause… and yet, He loves them still. Now the thing that really blows my mind about God’s love is that His love is more than just words or kind deeds, but His love was sacrificial… Often we complain, when asked to give someone a ride to church, to work, or even help in the smallest of ways. Yet God, with no pre-conditions, no expectation of repayment, no sense of entitlement, but purely and consistently loves all people. His love is sacrificial in that He went to the greatest lengths to demonstrate His love. The bible says in Romans 5:6-8  “For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This reveals the sacrificial nature of God’s love or another way of saying it, the “risk”. With sacrifice, there is always a risk involved. When we sacrifice our time, money, and energy to show our love to someone, it is a risk, we become vulnerable, we risk our sense of comfort, of peace, at times even our desire for justice, when we choose to love someone who has done us wrong. Yet, with Jesus we see a willingness to sacrifice, to risk it all. This is what makes Jesus the loftiest idea of humanity, this is perhaps one reason why for nearly 2,000 years people from every nation, culture, time period, language group, socioeconomic status, and racial identification have come to embrace His teachings and placed their faith in His words.

 When God created man, the bible says that He created us in His image and likeness. The Hebrew word for “image” in all these verses is “tzelem.” The word tzelem means “shadow” or “reflection.”  Meaning that we were created with the original capacity to love just as God loves! Exciting, yet risky. The death of Jesus was the greatest demonstration of love in world history, it was also the greatest risk. In God’s plan to restore the brokenness of our world, He must first take a huge risk by sending His Son to die as a demonstration of His nature to mankind. The key to restoration is taking a risk, by loving despite the forces of evil. If we are to truly become like Christ, we must learn to risk it all in the name of love. God will ordain circumstances which are for our benefit, in order that we might experience the depths of His power in our lives. Embracing and accepting God’s plan to restore our world, is to accept our role in that grand story of redemption. “To be crucified with Christ” to “Take up our cross”… these are not commandments of literal death, but of death to self. These are invitations from God as well as necessary steps to follow Jesus. This is a risk that few take, but for the few that take these risk of love, they will find the abundant life that Christ promised. The life of power, abundance, and freedom, is not a life without cares or concerns, it is a life of victory, despite our circumstances. Love is the passageway into this life. By risking our own sense of comfort, entitlement, justice, and emotions, we step into a world of the supernatural, where now death has lost its sting, the grave its victory, and now we are more than conquerors!

The most powerful thing we can do as believers is not heal the sick, raise the dead, or cast out demons, it is to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who spitefully use us. This type of power is what will bring the hardest sinner to their knees in repentance. This is the power which tears downs satanic powers and principalities, for against this love of God there is no weapon.

The Reward:

Now, that we’ve considered the risk, let us consider the reward of love. Revisiting the scenario I described in the beginning of this discussion about the member of our church who was battling with some issues, part of my reluctance to remain optimistic is due to my history of letdowns. As people we have all been let down, we have all taken risk that seemed to have turned out the opposite of our desire. For this reason, we are less likely to continue taking risk. We consider this “wisdom” but often times, it is truly a loss of faith. In a world full of negativity and inconsistency, it’s easy to build a fortress around our hearts, to train ourselves to place guards all around us. But why is this? It is because of fear. We are afraid of being hurt again. I’ve learned that the way to defeat this pessimism is to remember that the reward is not the result. Let me repeat myself. THE REWARD of LOVE is not the RESULT. We do not love, in order to be loved in return. We do not show kindness to be shown kindness in return. We are empowered to love as God loves, unconditionally. When we remember that the goal of our life is sanctification, which is to agree with God in the process of restoration unto holiness and becoming like Jesus, then we are enabled to love, not for a result, but for the sake of love itself. The reward of God’s love, is not our acceptance of His love or our repentance. God does not determine if the death and resurrection of Jesus was worth it, based upon how many people show appreciation for the available atonement of their sins. The reward for God is that His nature is clearly revealed to mankind. God’s goal in sending Jesus to die for our sins was His glory filling the earth once again. The ultimate restoration of the world is only possible through the knowledge of God’s glory covering the earth as the waters cover the see, and the knowledge of God’s glory, is the revelation of God’s nature, and the sacrificial, risky, unconditional love of God as seen in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is how it begins.

Conclusion:

For those reading this, there may be a struggle to love someone in your life, that someone may even be you. Without doubt, your life probably has a few chapters of pain, regret, and all sorts of things that sin has destroyed. If not now, keep living it is more than likely to happen. This is the result of a sin torn world. If there was no qualified savior such as the sinless Jesus to fix this mess, we call life, there would be no hope. But there is a savior and there is hope. God has been on a mission restoring everything wrong in our world. It takes cooperation and it takes time. We as God’s people must cooperate with His plan and that requires understanding of His plan. It also requires time, and that requires patience and trust in God. In Christ we see God’s nature or God’s image clearly and this now must become your reward. To embody the self-less, unconditional love of God in our lives is not only the goal, it is the strategy for restoration. It is the nuclear weapon of spiritual warfare. It defies every sense of human wisdom, goes against every sense of rational, it is truly otherworldly, and that’s just what we need. We need a wisdom that comes from above. There are no solutions derived on earth that can fix earth’s problems. We need a heavenly remedy for our soul sickness and thank God we have one in Jesus Christ and the call to risk it all in the name of love. You have power to forgive anybody that has done you wrong and you have power to even love them. You were created in the image and likeness of God and have everything needed to become like God. What you need is to believe on Jesus Christ, not in the historical account, not in the philosophy of life, or the miraculous things He did, but in His method of restoring the world. This is how your world will be restored. You will never cry over yesterday’s mistakes and you will never live in fear of what tomorrow may bring if you only believe that love is the way. Love is worth the risk, the reward, and the glory. May God empower you to become all that you desire to become in Jesus name, amen.

– Pastor Brian M. Williams