Lovin'

If I have my life all together (Not that I do, just an IF statement. Please continue reading.) but do not have LOVE I am worthless. If I have a nice car, a great job, dress the correct way, do things in the church the way I am expected to, do things for God and keep all the rules but never do any of this out of God's leading, then it is all a big ol' waste. This is what Jesus got so angry about with the religious leaders in his day. I was reading in Matthew and Mark about how he went off on them, then one of the leaders piped in and said, "Do you realize this is insulting to us?" Jesus said, "Yup, and let me make it more to the point."

We never think of Jesus going off on people and being mad. I mean, in theory we realize that he got mad at the church of his day when he went in and trashed the place. But we don't realize how out and out angry he got with the leaders. And why? Because they loaded people down with rules until they were oppressed. These men had the keys to the kingdom through knowledge but refused to go in for the sake of keeping rules and therefore blocked everyone else's way from going in, too. Jesus was so angry about this. I can't blame him. I mean, he knew what he had set out to do. He was God's Son in heaven, came to be just a man and he gets here and sees face-to-face that these people are barring the entrance to his dad. He was here to die a brutal death so more people could get to his dad.

What were the religious leaders lacking? LOVE. They had no compassion. They doled out the rules but wouldn't lift a finger to help someone when they became a slave or oppressed by the rules. They were accused of shining the bowls up really nicely on the outside when on the inside the food was rotten and maggoty. If we have it all together and go through the routine of church, always saying the right thing, always wearing the correct garment and singing the right song and praying the right way, but it does not flow first for a love of God and second a love of people, then it is worthless. If we keep everything down to the smallest detail but forget the big picture of love, joy and hope then we are as bad as the religious leaders of the day. Maybe even worse because we profess to be following Jesus and it is the thing he hated the most.

Last note, and I am done with this post. I was talking to my little brother in December. He had gone to a church where people had disapproved of a decision he and his wife had made that was totally their business only and not even something that would have been a sin; just their opinion. He liked the praise and worship and the preaching, so after a while they started going back there. I was sad that he didn't feel welcome, that there was a severe lack of love. If we have a church where there is not love, I think there is too much man and not enough God. I don't want to write five pages here on the situation to show you how love was absent, but it was. I think God's biggest heartbreak of this day and age is when his church doesn't show love to themselves and to the people who don't know God.