SCANDALOUS
June 15th, 2022
LOVE…Finds No Delight in What Is Wrong (v.13:6)
1 Corinthians 13:8, 13, ‘Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which one day will fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten…Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope and love—yet love surpasses them all. So, above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.’ (TPT)
Love doesn’t keep score of the sins of others. Love never revels when others grovel.
Have you ever waited for someone to make a mistake, to fall from glory? Maybe it was a sibling you strived against or a rival in high school sports or someone you were vying with for a title of some kind, perhaps Valedictorian or a promotion at work or even for an invitation to somewhere spectacular. Doesn’t it make you crazy when others are chosen instead of you?
For nearly two-and-a-half-years we have been fighting a seen pandemic; Covid is no longer unknown to us or unseen. Yet, we also face a growing, invisible pandemic that has been in existence forever but becoming more prominent the more miserable people find themselves. How to out-do, overrun, out-class someone else. And everyone becomes viable as we wish to catapult ourselves over the top.
I was beginning a *Google* search and asking to be shown the most humble Biblical character, one that we might be able to relate to and learn from, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Jesus is the only one who qualifies. I think about Zacchaeus hidden up in the branches of that sycamore tree who Jesus exclaimed to, “Come down from there for I must come to your house today!” How humble for Jesus to relate to a person of opposite character, to see him, first of all, hidden in the branches of a tree, and then to seek him, and call him to Himself and invite Himself into Zacchaeus’ world, and finally then, to save him, save him from himself. I think about the leper who lived on the outskirts of town, who could not enter into the city due to his disease. Jesus met him on his road and healed him entirely, and then commanded him to not say a word. The leper did exactly what I would have done, shouted to anyone who would have listened that he had been healed, and therefore, Jesus had to remain in lonely places, on the outskirts of the town, and I wonder, was it so he could identify with the lonely, the diseased, the misrepresented. The lonely, the untouchables?
There isn’t anything more humbling than dying for mankind. Jesus certainly did not keep score of my sin and my shame. Do you think for one minute today that when I mess up Jesus hollers out, “I told you so! I knew you’d screw up again.” Has there ever been one time that Jesus has whispered into my soul that I wasn’t enough, that I could never do enough, I’d never perform enough, I’d never be enough? When I have been lying in the dirt, sniveling, snot dried on my face, tears drenching my cheeks, Jesus has never said, “I want you to stay there a minute longer and think about what you just did, what you just caused! Go stand in the Naughty Corner, sit on the Bad Chair. Get out of here; I can’t stand to see your face. You need to take a TimeOut! I love it when you are beholden to Me. Grovel some more and I might, just might, give you a pass.” In fact, Jesus has sat by my bedside and held my hand when I cried for days on end for what I lost, what I wagered, what I foolishly bartered. He has wiped my face clean and held my hair back as I grew sick with grief. And He stayed. He stayed! when everyone else left. He was the One there cheering me on, telling me I could try again, promising me I could make it, giving me the reason to make it and try again. He is most patient, most humble, my greatest fan. And, boy howdy, I have screwed up, major mistakes, and Jesus has never left my side, has never stopped believing in me for one moment, has never questioned His love for me, never doubted why He gave His life for that of mine. Now, that’s love!
1 John 3:1a, ‘Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous (extravagant) love that He has lavished on us! He has called us and made us His very own beloved children!’ (TPT)
So many weddings happen every year during the month of June; so many ‘I do’s’ are spoken that eventually become ‘I don’t’s’, because we understand so little about love, God’s love, and the humility of it, the patience of it. What would happen if we too loved like that and never gave up on others, never sold them short, never shoved them down, never kept track of their fouls and strikes, outs and timeouts? What a game that would be!
