Most of us have
experienced walking into a room and feeling like everyone was looking our way.
I don’t mean the kind of look you get for the sake of the admiration of those
in the room but rather the judgment of those in the room. Perhaps you have been
that person looking at someone that way as they appeared. Regardless of what
side of “the looking” you and I may have been on, we can agree that subjective
glances towards others that express our assessment of their short-comings and
the judgment that follows does not reflect the heart of God.
I remember leaving
a youth conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee one December morning and watching
some adults who were passing by openly display their displeasure with our
group’s excitement. I knew that these folks could not have known the impact
that this conference had made on the lives of those youth who had attended, but
I found it very difficult to just be okay with their response to our group. It
appeared as though the students that had just been encouraged and transformed
before my eyes were seen by these adults as just another group of “loud and
obnoxious kids”. I was growing more and more upset with this situation, but as
we began our trip back home I found myself asking God to forgive “those people”
for the attitudes of their hearts and to help me forgive them as well. It was
during this time that God began to show me the hypocrisy of my prayer. I was
considering the looks on the faces of these people as the proof of their
hearts, the same way I presumed they were looking at the loud excitement of our
teens as a testimony to their character. God then got my attention further by
asking this question of me: “Lee, what if you didn’t worry about what people
were thinking or doing when you first see them- what if you could just somehow
seek to love them first?” My heart became imprinted with this idea that I could
seek to “love first”. Before I wonder what the person is doing, before I wonder
what they might want from me, before I make any assumptions about their character
or intent; that I would simply look for how I could love them- “Love First”.
Jesus told a
parable in Luke 15 about a man that had two sons of which the younger asked for
his share of the inheritance of his father- while the father was still alive!
The story goes on to explain how that son wasted all that the father had given
him and the point of desperation he had reached when he decided to return to
his father’s home. Scripture tells us that this son had practiced his speech to
his father and was hoping that he would be received back into the home, even if
only as a servant. This young man began making his way home and his father saw
him at a distance and RAN out to meet him. The younger son began to state his
case but he was unable to finish his appeal because the father was too
concerned with pouring his love out on the son. How easy it would have been for
the father to make assumptions or demand explanations, but he took an approach
that expressed the value of the son in his eyes first. The father “loved first”.
Perhaps you could create an opportunity to exercise this type of
unconditional love in your community. How exciting would it be to see the heart of
love within the body of Christ spill out into our communities in a way that
brings glory to God and exalts the name of Jesus. Why not ask God to show you His desire for you to "Love First"? Then walk forward in obedience to His will and watch as He draws people into the kingdom!
Captured by Christ!
Lee
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