Uncomfortable Fellowship
Intro
Message
This sort of self-giving love works because it is how God-in-three-persons functions. The other-serving love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one in which each “magnifies the other, wants the other to have the glory, and wherever possible gives to the other.”
To love someone as Christ loves is to meet them in their sin but to not let them stay there. It is to walk with them in their battles and struggles, urging them onward (and they you) in the renovation of the heart. This will be messy and painful at times, requiring grace and sacrifice on all sides. But the more love takes on a cruciform shape, the more powerful it becomes.
God’s love doesn’t wait for us to be deserving of it. It descends to us, writes Wells. “We could not make our way up to him, so he made his way down to us.”
He loves us even while we rebelliously undermine his rule and flee his righteousness.
Early Christians were characterized by this sort of love. They were known both for their love for one another and for their pagan neighbors
May that be true in our generation as well. May our radical, sacrificial, stranger-focused love fan the flames of mission. May they “know we are Christians by our love,”18 as the song goes, not because we are great but because the Holy Spirit is at work within us. May it be as undeniable to the world as it is uncomfortable for us.