Pour in the Love
We had our Young Adults ministry launch for 2014 last week. It was a great time of reconnecting, meeting new members and thinking about the coming year and what we’d like to achieve, and how we’d like to grow.
As a part of the evening I led a reflection on the culture that we’d like to foster at our group called, ‘Pour in the Love’.
It was a reminder to ‘always pour in the love’ to everyone in the group and to everyone we encounter in our wider networks, because the danger when we begin getting too familiar with people is that we begin to notice those habits or tendencies they have that really annoy us.
They may have a different sense of humour and tell jokes you think are lame. They may have a different attitude to issues and ideals close to your heart, etc. This is a natural part of living in community and often what starts out as ‘friendly banter’ becomes a disguise for veiled insults and frustration.
We need to remember to always pour in the love. This should be our auto-pilot, this should be our natural tendency. We should, naturally, shy away from criticism of one another. Jesus said, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Luke 6:41)
Instead, Jesus was all about the love:
John 15:12 – ‘My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.’ How did He love us? By connecting with us, sharing with us, teaching us, loving us and ultimately dying for us.
John 13:35 – ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
And Paul says further, ‘Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.’ (Romans 12:9-10)
This command from Paul reveals a nasty trap that Christians are very vulnerable to falling into. As we are fallen people commanded to love others, we have made a talent of pretending to love. We aren’t perfect and others tend to annoy and frustrate us just as much as they would anyone. So what do we often do? We’re often tempted to follow the easy way and ‘pretend’. We must remember to be sincere in our love for one another, and this is very, very difficult.
We must remember to ‘always pour in the love’. Can you imagine a home, a Bible study group, a church, where everyone was loving genuinely and sincerely? Home wouldn’t be a hard place to be, Bible Study wouldn’t be ‘one more thing to do that week’, church wouldn’t be a drag as we often have to deal with those who seem self-righteous, or just plain boring. Instead, they would be places we all looked forward to attending and being a part of. They would be places where we would bloom and flourish and grow!
The apostle Peter says, ‘Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.’ (1 Peter 4:8) We can and do make mistakes, we can and do annoy each other. But if our love for one another is genuine, our friendships can survive anything!
And if we need a bit of reminder as to what genuine love looks like, here it is:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)
God bless
