"And that's when it hit me like so much epiphany getting dislodged from my arteries. The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money... If somebody is doing something for us, offering us something, be it gifts, time, popularity, or what have you, we feel they have value, we feel they are worth something to us.... This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money.... With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did."Love doesn't work like money. It is not a commodity. When we barter with it, we all lose. When the church does not love its enemies, it fuels their rage. It makes them hate us more.
"I knew what I was doing was wrong. It was selfish, and what's more, it would never work... I was guilty of using love like money, withholding it to get somebody to be who I wanted them to be. I was making a mess of everything. And I was disobeying God... The power of Christian spirituality has always rested in repentance, so that's what I did. I told God I was sorry.... Instead of withholding love I poured it on, lavishly.. hoping that love would pull people from the mire toward healing. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson." - Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
1 comment:
Wow, that is absolutely beautiful and so true. The Bible Study group that I lead is currently going through the book UnChristian by David Kinnaman and one of the recurring themes we are finding is that those outside the church have very real opinions (many negative) about Christianity because of what Christians have done and said in the past. Unfortunately, we often play into those stereotypes.
Thanks for quoting such a great exhortation about the nature of love and how we often misuse such a wonderful gift from God!
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