Love goes in the direction
of pain. Love does not
measure the worth of the person
as a guide to its behavior.
Love
is
generous to all not just to the deserving.
Love is its own justification for its actions.
In Luke chapter 10 Jesus
explains true love
to a man who is deliberately trying to destroy Jesus'
credibility. Jesus
gives the pure truth to this enemy of
His ministry in the form of a story about a Samaritan man who
genuinely loved
someone who probably would not have wanted to have anything to
do with
Samaritans.
True love goes generously
in the direction
of the pain of all people not just some people. To become
perfect in our love
we must learn with Jesus to deliver the best we are and the
best we have to
anyone who needs who we are and what we have.
Every culture gives
permission to ignore
some kind of person. The ignoring of persons may be legal and
applauded by the
culture in which we live, but love gives no such permission.
For true love to
flow, we must eliminate from our thinking the categories of
people we feel free
to ignore and pass by.
When Jesus told His enemy
the truth it was
an act of love. Jesus
was not trying to
embarrass the man. He
was trying to save
him.
Bud McCord
Abide International