Loving without agenda
Alyssa Ott, Guest Reporter
October 24, 2007
What does it mean to love? Jesus defined how we are to love and live when a man asked him what the greatest commandment was. He responded by telling the man to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
This according to Jesus was the "first and greatest commandment," the chief aim and responsibility of following the one true God. Jesus continued by telling the man to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:27-29). This command to us as believers is coming right after the one telling us to honor and revere God.
We are to love others, not above God, but just as much as ourselves-and we love ourselves. Humans are pretty self-focused. Psychology defines this as egocentricism, or self-centeredness. We are consumed with ourselves.
If we truly live our lives for ourselves, we are faced with an incredibly difficult challenge- how do we love others just as much? The only way to do so is to look back at the greatest commandment. It is through loving God that we have enough love for others, equal to the amount we have for ourselves. But if we are to love others, what is our motivation? Did Jesus tell us the reason we are to love others? Or did he purposely let it remain ambiguous? What will happen if this commandment is fulfilled in our everyday lives?
This love, this true love that comes from God, is revolutionary. It is explosive, groundbreaking, and pure. Have we as a body of Christ maintained that true love? Have we clung to Jesus as the center of our lives, loving him out of our own desperation, and have we in return been touched by his love and fire in order that we may contagiously spread it, loving others equally as ourselves? Or, are we trying to function on our own strength, out of our own humanity? Have we lost touch of what the love of Christ really looks like?
Today many people are put off by Christians. Even the name "Christian" may evoke feelings of anger and personal offence. Why is this? Have we as His body missed something? Rob Bell illustrates this misdirection in his book Velvet Elvis perfectly. He wrote that "oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith." There is a hidden motive, or "an agenda", in Bell's words. If we love with agenda, is it true love? Bell proposes that we "rediscover love." We need to find the love that loves because we are so overwhelmed with God's own love for us- His love that loves because we exist. He sees us in all of our shortcomings and frailties and whispers, "I love you." Yet if we do not accept Him, He does not stop or recall His love. He does not move on because we are uninterested, or a "lost cause." He remains the same "yesterday, today, and forever," loving us without hidden motivation. In response to this as believers, we must seek to love the same. But if we knew that someone would not come to Christ in the course of his or her lives, would our love for them change? Would we stop loving because they are not worth our time? Or would our love remain the same?
Watch yourself today. Question how and why you love. Question whether you love with an agenda, or love as a direct result of being closely in connection with God, loving Him and experiencing his love. Love the Lord your God first- before yourself, and before others. Let his love fill you. And as He fills you with the only true love, allow yourself to love as He does- with no hidden motive or meaning. Jesus loves so that we may receive His love. He loves because He is love. May we extend that love, the essence of who God himself is, to everyone we meet, without an agenda.