February 10, 2008
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Pure hypocrisy – is it in you?
“He is good; His love endures forever.” (2 Chron 5:13) His love goes on and on. There is no end to His love, there are no bounds and no limits.
This means that no matter what we do or how far we stray, His love endures, it continues, He’ll keep loving us. This means no matter how gross our sin or grotesque we seem to others, His love endures.
This means that no matter how far others stray, how gross their sin, how grotesque they seem to us, His love for them will endure — it continues, it goes on and on and will never end.
His love has no bounds. No matter their race (white, hispanic, black, chinese, vietnamese, korean), no matter their class (how rich or poor they are), no matter their gender, His love has no bounds.
It’s hard for us to love those who seem “less deserving” than we are — those who are the worse in our opinions — for example, the homeless person (because we are prejudiced to think they’re lazy) or the prostitute (because we think they’re dirty) or certain race minorities (because we have stereotypes about each one) — but God’s love has no bounds.
As Christians, many of us pride ourselves in thinking that we are able to love as God loves – but the reality is that many of us are usually only able to “love like He loves” as long as we can keep our personal space, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us or cost us anything. Talk to someone less deserving – sure. Serve in a soup kitchen – sure. But invite them into our home to serve them dinner, sleep in our bed or treat them as family??? That’s a different matter. It’s hard for us to comprehend — but God wouldn’t just invite them home but He would adopt them and call them His own with great gladness and joy. He wouldn’t even hesitate. He doesn’t hesitate with us — and for that we are oh so very glad — but for some reason, we begrudge others of getting this same kind of unconditional love from the Lord. We are unwilling to love as He truly loves. Those people aren’t less deserving than us. We are equally undeserving and when we lack the ability to love and act on that love – though we say that we do – we are staring our own hypocrisy right in the face.
I cannot love and worship a God whose love is so limitless and proclaim it so loudly without moving to imitate Him. It’s not possible. It’s pure hypocrisy to act contrary to my God’s nature. I’m a hypocrite if I praise Him for a love that knows no bounds and yet represent Him as a judgmental, conditional kind of God to the world. Oh, hypocrisy. How desperately I want to nail my hypocrisy to the cross! How about you?
Comments (5)
Wow. I never thought of it that way. In our society, we are always talking about “tolerance,” and I think people get tired of it. But when we think about how love and kindness toward others is based on God’s love for and kindness toward them, the whole idea of examining our attitudes toward others is not just happy American rhetoric.
Thanks, Licoreen. They are such good thoughts, I have nothing to add!! =)
so true. isn’t it crazy how God wants us to be one with him? does he KNOW the bride he’s marrying????
i don’t know how to love as God loves. but i think he does. so let’s ask him and take steps of faith! go for it, mary ann! start with a heart to want to reach the lost as family (john 17 one-ness style) and see how God draws you to those ppl and how for those he’s chosen at that season, he shows the fruits of this prayer.
pray for me too.
another great post as always.. thanks!
ps. currently in Manila on vacation, hence why I haven’t given feedback for sometime. Xanga is still blocked in China (Beijing)
@trijoyals -
dear natalie, you will have to pray for us…because we are taking those steps of faith — and not everyone is on the same page as us.