We have kicked off our second message series of the new year, and it is already getting a lot of attention. Maybe because it’s the topic: love. And not just any old kind of love…we’re tackling tough love.
To begin with, to truly be people who love others, we need to come to the fuller sense of the word. We need to see love not as something we have and hold, but something we do. Its not a noun, it’s a verb. And that means we have to do something, and it doesn’t always feel good.
And that makes love much tougher.
- Your toddler wants to wonder where they do not belong and will surely get themselves into trouble and you have to stop them and that brings tears.
- Your teenager wants to go to a movie that will only confuse them and send a conflicting message with the values you’re trying to impart to her and you say “no” and that leads to a fight.
- Your friend is drinking, and all your other friends know it, but nobody wants to say anything so you do, and now you’re the bad guy.
Here’s another way to put it.
To love humanity is easy. To love people is great…people who love people are the luckiest people in the world, absolutely. But when people become a person, then it gets tough.
To marry someone and stay married (to the same person), to raise children and not let them drive you crazy, to commit to a friendship and invest in that friendship, is tough. Not everybody can do it, and all of us fail at least from time to time.
And as much as we struggle to love the people in our lives we want to love Jesus raises the standard even more. While you’re struggling to love your parents and your spouse and your siblings, he says its not enough; as tough as that is, there’s more, and it’s tougher because…
- You gotta love your nosey neighbor
- You gotta love your ceaselessly demanding coach
- You gotta love your endlessly annoying boss
And then he says, even that isn’t enough, there’s more and it’s tougher because…
- You have to love your persecutors
- You have to love your detractors
- You have to love your enemies
Talk about tough.
Join us for this new series, live on Ridgely Road, Saturdays at 5, Sundays at 9, 10:30am, 12n & 5:30pm; or live on line Sundays at 10:30am and 5:30pm. You can also catch each weeks message anytime on our web site, beginning each Monday afternoon.
