At a recent parade, I was informed that it was cool to be a Christian. A float that approached had a large banner from front to back that declared, “ IT’S COOL TO BE A CHRISTIAN.” That struck me as odd because as long as I’ve been a Christian, I have never thought of my walk with God as being cool – counter-cultural, maybe – but never cool. Some people walking alongside the float carried posters with the word “COOL” on them. Even with the slight breeze I felt as I sat in the shade on a hot summer afternoon, I still didn’t feel cool. Then I noticed that the hand-held posters had more writing revealing “COOL” as an acronym for – Carrying Out Our Love. Can I be honest with you? It turned me off, and I didn’t find any of them cool. I was Cringing Over Others Love.
I really had to ask myself why other Christian brothers and sisters declaring their love for others would make me cringe? After all, isn’t that one of the most important commandments? Aren’t we supposed to love our neighbors? The answer is yes; we are not only supposed to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all our mind, but we are supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves also. So I had to ask myself, “Isn’t that what they were doing? Weren’t they just loving others? What was my problem?”
My problem is that their love, our love, and my love is human, and human love - if we can even call it love - is born in the human heart. God tells us plainly and without reservation that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. It is so bad that only God can really understand the depths of its deception (Jeremiah 17:9-10). Love birthed in the human heart is naturally self-centered. It is a covering for fear and pride; its goal is self-aggrandizement, self-preservation, and self-appeasement.
Natural love, which is:
their love,
our love,
and my love,
is wholly and utterly incapable of loving others.
If not natural love, then what kind of love is God talking about when He commands us to love others? Jesus explained it to His disciples at the Last Supper. In the upper room He gave them, as well as us, a new commandment. He said, “Love each other.” (What? That doesn’t sound new at all, does it?) However, He then went much further and said, “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” Jesus commands us to love each other with His love, not with our love. The love He is talking about is the love that is born in the Father’s heart, not ours. It will be proof that we are His disciples when we are carrying out His love (John 13: 34-35). The love that Christ modeled to us from the Father’s heart is perfect and without deception. It has no ulterior motive, and it is freely given so that it can be carried to others.
God’s supernatural and perfect love for others is a gift of the Holy Spirit (Col. 1:8). This reminds me that the love I have for others is a good gift from God, and that any love for others from my human heart is a deception. It is only with God’s love that I can love obediently. It is only His love that truly and unconditionally loves others. So before I pen any of my own “clever” acronyms about my Christian walk, regardless of how “good” my intentions might be, I need to ask myself, “Whose love is it anyway?” I hope you ask yourself beforehand too.
Grace to you.
Dave Paukner
