To this day, after 18 years of pastoral ministry, Matthew may be the best and most impactful church elder I have ever worked alongside.
Grace must come before ethics. Love must come before the morality discussion. Love — the broad embrace of the narrow path — will trigger some of the most life-giving experiences you’ll ever be part of.
Loving like Jesus — is it possible?
How can we begin to live from agape so that stories like Matthew’s become the norm versus the exception? How can we create environments in which this kind of love flourishes?
Here’s how. We must first realize that love is the environment where we are already living. Love has to be a person to us before it can become a verb. And the One who is Love Incarnate — Jesus — doesn’t just love us when we’re at our best. He also loves us when we are at our worst. When we are caught in the act. When we fall asleep on Him instead of watching and praying with Him. When we deny Him three times. When we become His persecutors. When we come into His prayer meetings drunk — drunk on our ambition, our greed, our resentful grudges, our pornographic imaginations, our self-righteousness.
From these places, Jesus asks, “Do you like cookies? May I get you one? Will you sit with me? How about rehab? May I accompany you there? May I pay the fee? May I come alongside you toward sobriety, then a new life, then a seat at my table, then a job in my Kingdom? I went to the battlefield, I loved from the battlefield, to launch this love trajectory for your life. Protection from the Klingons. Sweeter than Jolly Ranchers. All you need is nothing. All you need is need.”
These words from one of my favorite hymns, “Come, ye sinners” says it all:
Come ye sinners, poor and needy
Weak and wounded, sick and sore.
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Full of pity, joined with power…
Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream.
All the fitness he requires
Is to feel your need of him.
How do we love like Jesus?
It starts with resting and receiving. It starts by stopping.
Perhaps we should stop trying to love like Jesus, and instead first learn what it means to be with him, yes?
Because the more we are with Jesus, the more we will become like him. Love is caught more than it is achieved. Get close to love, and love tends to rub off.
Let’s pursue this path, the love path, the no-condemnation path; shall we?
This essay is an adapted excerpt from Scott’s latest book, Befriend: Create Belonging in an Age of Judgment, Isolation and Fear. Used with permission.
About the Author: Scott Sauls is senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and author of Jesus Outside the Lines and Befriend. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @scottsauls or [on] his blog at scottsauls.com.