God created us to both love and crave love. We respond deeply to love. This truth is both the most powerful secret weapon and a paramount obstacle for Evangelical Christians. It is our secret weapon because we come proclaiming the greatest love of all. Christ offers the very love that we were created to enjoy. It’s like we’ve got gold bars to just hand out. We point to perfect love. And we see literally everywhere desperate deficiency in the giving and ability to receive love. We know where to get the purest and most valued commodity on the earth.
However, it remains simultaneously our biggest obstacle because we live in a world where there are a thousand definitions of love – fame adoration, dysfunction, codependency, exploitation, and even judgment. Mankind’s ability to recognize true love has been tainted by what we call love. And, I don’t mean how we trivialize love. That distinction has been made over and over. We get that our love for family and tacos aren’t the same. I’m talking about how we think we are loving someone or that we have been loved by someone, but not all things called love are worthy of that title. When we say, “Hear the GOOD NEWS: GOD LOVES YOU,” they just can’t hear it. It’s like our gold bars look like red clay. The value appears diminished because we lost sight of what real love is. Consider Justin Timberlake’s experience at ComicCon this year.
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While Justin walked around incognito as Ernie from Sesame Street-
Timberlake had been interrupted by a woman in the crowd who'd yelled "I love you!" to him. "I love you, too," he'd said back, and I'd suspected that only one of them had meant it. But now I can see it's very easy to give love when you're given love so easily... I can't believe they're playing one of my songs," he says, and he really does sound dumbstruck. He seems genuinely moved by the idea that people might enjoy what he does — maybe because all the love he receives is now from too great a distance for him to really feel it, like that moment when the woman yelled from the crowd and he was up on the stage. She, not he, was the one out of range. But today, this afternoon, thanks to his ridiculous costume, he's able to feel it again. He's able to stand in the middle of things once again, without fear, without needing Eric to stand between him and the love....
After Justin returned to the crowd as himself with the reporter in tow –
Then we step outside. It takes exactly three seconds — literally, three seconds — for the afternoon to disappear into night. Flashes start going off. People run in front of traffic, sprinting toward him. A crowd forms quickly, coming at us from all sides. A girl cries. And nobody's smiling. Nobody's happy. This isn't love. It's fame, pure and uncut.
Italics are my contextual notes. Excerpts are from Chris Jones' Esquire article. You can read the rest of the article here.
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Once Justin entered the crowd as himself a significantly perverted form of something we often call love descended upon him. The reporter recognizes the destructive nature of it because he had something with which to compare the experience.
(Side bar - Before moving to the theological implications, I think it’s important to note the commentary here on our culture of celebrity. I freely confess I feed it, but I hope that I interact with it in a responsible manner. This moment is not genuinely valuable to either the celebrity or the fan. No wonder so many people have such screwed up personal lives in Hollywood. If you were constantly bombarded with such warped views of love, how would you ever recognize the real deal? Instead of judging their messed up lives, we proclaim even louder the hope and love of Christ!)
Every day we encounter warped circumstances or perceptions of love. How do we relearn how to recognize the free love of the Triune God? What are the ways that we distance ourselves from the love offered to us? Do we know what that love really looks like? Do we receive it? Do we offer it in the fullness that is available to us?
Real love is authentic, free, constant, sacrificial, desires reciprocity, fun, affirming, true, and surprising. This is the Love God has for you. This is the Love God offers you. Stop trying to mask it with the junk we call love. God's love for you is so much more.
Hear the word of God –
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We love because he first loved us.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people.
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.
Anyone who does not love remains in death.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
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Soundtrack, My Love, Justin Timberlake
