So I was hanging out with some students the other day when I overheard this conversation:
BM: If you show me that dance, I'll love you forever.
BW: (mockingly) Why does your love always have conditions?
BM: (as meekly and innocently as possible) Because I want things.
It was a conversation in jest between two really great kids, but I loved it. When we fail at love, there is only one reason why: We have made love about us.
In church-speak, we always talk about God's unconditional love. It's a hard thing to wrap our heads and hearts around sometimes, because that is so rarely the way we love.
But, oh if we could...
Showing posts with label unconditional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unconditional. Show all posts
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Jesus and Colbert and Grace
Stephen Colbert and the Gospel:
Some Colbertisms:
"Jesus said we only have to love those who deserve it."
I'm glad that grace doesn't work like that. I sure don't deserve it. Somehow, I'm a recipient of it.
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy, without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it."
True grace is given to those who need it, but do not necessarily deserve it. Colbert gets it and that's what he's saying in this satire.
Christ came because we could not save ourselves. In Mark 2:17, Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
It seems as if many are saying that we'll give you help, we'll give you a doctor, when you feel better. That's not the gift of the Gospel. That's not Grace. Grace is summed up in Romans 5:8-- "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Grace is not at all about anything I've done. When I truly believe that, then I'll be able to love in the way that Christ loved: unconditional, sacrificial and with nothing in return.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat | ||||
| ||||
Some Colbertisms:
"Jesus said we only have to love those who deserve it."
I'm glad that grace doesn't work like that. I sure don't deserve it. Somehow, I'm a recipient of it.
"If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy, without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it."
True grace is given to those who need it, but do not necessarily deserve it. Colbert gets it and that's what he's saying in this satire.
Christ came because we could not save ourselves. In Mark 2:17, Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
It seems as if many are saying that we'll give you help, we'll give you a doctor, when you feel better. That's not the gift of the Gospel. That's not Grace. Grace is summed up in Romans 5:8-- "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Grace is not at all about anything I've done. When I truly believe that, then I'll be able to love in the way that Christ loved: unconditional, sacrificial and with nothing in return.
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