“God, I don’t love these people like I should.”
“Janea, that’s because you’re not loving them like I would.”
“So-and-so is over there praying for someone again.”
“They just seem to be so broken when they speak of that people group.”
“How can they just sit there and try to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak English all day and actually enjoy it?”
“Is there something wrong with me? Am I just a hateful person?”
There have been many times I sit before the Lord and just cry. “Lord, I just want to love like you. I just want my heart to break for what breaks yours.
Sitting with a squad mentor a few weeks back, I confided in her about my struggle with this. “Janea!” she exclaimed. “When you talk about Jesus, I see your love for Him. If you didn’t love Him, then we might have an issue; but because you love God, everything will flow from that.” Tears of relief streamed down my face and I shared with her a vision I had a few days earlier.
> While praying about this I felt God show me something really simple but profound. I closed my eyes and there was Jesus, smiling, with blood dripping down His arms- His blood. Before Him appeared crowds of people. He began to walk and smear His blood upon them. The crowds changed from one race and nation to another. From fields, to stores, and everything in between. There was enough blood for everyone and He was more than pleased to wipe Himself onto those around Him. Without stating a word Jesus answered my question:
“Janea, if you see my people covered in my blood, as Sons and Daughters, a royal priesthood, you will see them with my perspective and you can love them like I do. My blood is just as sufficient for them as it is and has been for you.”
Afterwards He led me to:
Revelation 5:9-10. “And they sang a new song with these words:”You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth.”
And that’s when it hit me. Even though I know better, I can NOT love with my false idea of “love”. In my own flesh I want to give up after a while. I might even judge or feel numb to someone sitting right in front of me. Yet, seeing God’s perspective and image on a person or people group makes a world of a difference.
1 Corinthians 13:7 “Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
So even when I don’t feel it comes naturally to love the one in front of me, I want to ask God: “What does love look like right now to this person?” Whether I am teaching children English, discipling a local, telling the Gospel to a Buddhist or Muslim, or even talking to someone at a market, they are God’s and He doesn’t ever stop loving them and neither should I.
SO LET US LOVE WITH THE LOVE THAT CHRIST HAS SHOWN US & LET’S NOT STOP BECAUSE THE WORLD IS WAITING TO SEE JESUS!!