Finding a Lovable Object or an Object Lovable?

Danish philosopher/theologian Soren Kierkegaard says the following: It is a sad upside-downness, altogether too common, to talk on and on about how the object of love should be before it can be loved. The task is not to find the lovable object, but to find the object before you lovable ... and to be able to continue finding this one lovable, no matter how that person changes. To love is to love the person one sees. As the apostle John reminds us: “He who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). Here Kierkegaard engages with some of the same texts that we will be looking at this week in our continuing study of 1 John, looking specifically at the call to love one another as God has loved us.

Kierkegaard's point here is that the call to love (particularly those in Christ) is not contingent on the object of our love being lovable in their behavior or observable character. Rather, it is incumbent on the believer, who sees with the eyes that come with union with Christ, to see the lovableness within the person in front of us, even as Christ sees it in us. Ultimately, this is what makes church different than the social clubs of the world. The world's social clubs are looking for points of connection that tickle our fancy and makes us feel positively toward those that we commingle with. The church says we are are connected, whether we like everyone or not, therefore we must practice loving one another as Christ loved us, even to the point of laying down our lives for the other (cf. 1 John 3:16). This sacrificial love of one another is what Francis Schaeffer, drawing from Jesus' High Priestly prayer, calls the Final Apologetic (cf. Jn 17:22, 23). In The Mark of a Christian, Schaeffer states it bluntly, "if an individual Christian does not show love toward other true Christians, the world has a right to judge that he is not a Christian.”

This call to love one another, is also why in our recent discussions on priorities to highlight for Christ Church going forward, we highlighted the need for people coming to Christ Church to experience meaningful care and connection within the body. Loving one another doesn't just happen. It takes the intentionality of offering c-groups and joining c-groups, fold care teams being active, noticing the people that you are sitting next to in worship, reaching out to the bereaved, praying for/with those walking through the fire, and so many other ways, seen and unseen. It is why John says, "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (I John 3:18)"

How are we to do all this? We don't have a shot, if Christ is not in us. But if he is ... Then all things are possible!