When Our Love Fails

When our love fails for our fellow man, we have two choices: repent then change, choosing what is better.. or resist the command of God thereby becoming bitter.  Sad to say, many Christians will choose the latter.  And many Christians will fail to see that truth spoken in love is the key to repentance.  It’s hard to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin if no one will tell you the truth about what God commands to begin with.  Too many in the Church close their ears to Truth because it’s hard to speak it and they don’t want to do it.  They don’t want to be judged or hated by the world, viewed as a freak or a zealot.  Instead they take the easy route of least resistance.  Be content with silence.  And their love for others grows cold.  Their love fails.

As I continue my look at Francis A. Schaeffer’s The Mark of the Christian, he writes about the litmus test of observable love,

“If people say, ‘You don’t love other Christians,’ we must go home, get down on our knees and ask God whether or not they are right.  And if they are, then they have a right to have said what they said.  We must be very careful at this point, however.  We may be true Christians, really born-again Christians, and yet fail in our love toward other Christians.  As a matter of fact, to be completely realistic, it is stronger than this.  There will be times (and let us say it with tears), there will be times when we will fail in our love toward each other as Christians.”

Failure in love is not the fig tree test of our unregenerate status.  Failure in love happens–even among Christians–because we’re all broken people who fall short of the glory of God.

We must never settle, however, for the 666 of sin’s imperfection instead of repenting and holding tight to the standard of the 777 of God’s perfect Triune Love.  So, for example, the protestors right now believe in something that is just off enough of the standard of Truth to lead them to a really bad place.  Instead of repentance and forgiveness, they’d prefer to cling tightly to their anger at their fellow man and their Love Trumps Hate posters all the while demonstrating that love has little place in their lives. 

Love Trumps Hate is not in the Bible. 

It’s simply not and that one degree makes all the difference!

You know what is in the Bible? 

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. (Luke 6:27-28)

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

Instead of protesting and demanding “love” from others, that degree of difference says, “You do it.  You show love.  You do good.  You bless others.  You pray for those mistreating you.”  And frankly, the devil is totally in that one degree of difference.  It fails because a 666 is not close enough to pure love or even a cigar.

So what do we do then, as Christians? 

We go to them with God’s perfect standard of love and see their anger and Love Trumps Hate signs as evidence of wounded specimens of genuine humanity crying out in desperation for wholeness in Christ.  Interpret their signs as saying, 

I Need Jesus.  I’m Hurting and I Don’t Know What to Do!” 

Give them the Gospel.  Show them that observable love, that litmus test of true Christians, of genuine love that covers over a multitude of sins, and then teach them the Truth of who Love is.  Because His Name is Jesus.  He never fails.  Apart from that Truth there will be no repentance, no change, no love, and no hope and the bitterness already present will send its root deep in their hearts.  Love them with an observable love so that your love aims toward the standard of love that never fails.  God’s love never fails when you show it toward your fellow man, in or outside of the Christian family of God.