Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Challenge
- Challenge: God does not merely wish us to be in relationship with Him as we are. He challenges us to grow, stretch, and transform as we take on the mantle of being His representatives to this world.
You may
wonder why it is that I’ve picked challenge for this chapter. After all, this whole chapter is on
love. This whole chapter focuses on the
greatness of God’s love and how wonderful it is to partake in that which god
offers to us. This is a really uplifting
and inspiring chapter. So why do I focus
on challenge?
For me,
this is a very challenging chapter.
After all, perfect love casts out fear.
That’s a very hard verse; it’s a very hard concept.
Am I ever
afraid to love? Perhaps now more than
ever. Am I ever hesitant about opening
up myself out of fear that I might be rejected, abused, mistreated, taken advantage,
or some other negative thing?
Absolutely. If I had to confess,
I don’t know of many times in my life that the call to love hasn’t been
accompanied with a little fear. Love is
difficult because it opens the door for rejection and many other negative
concepts.
However,
in saying this I know that I am not wrong.
After all, when Jesus loved, was He not rejected? When Jesus reached out to others, was he not
shunned? If I desire to imitate my Lord,
why should I think that the very things that He experienced would not happen to
me?
Yet, that
didn’t keep Him from loving. He loved in
spite of the rejection that was coming. That’s
where the challenge comes in. It’s one
thing to be afraid to love. That’s
human. The inspiration of the divine
comes when we know we have every reason to fear the rejection that can come
with love and we love anyways.
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