Live Love - Part II

Jude 1:21

Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

There's a song that Aaron sings in church sometimes, the chorus repeats "Jesus' blood never fails me"... It's a powerful concept and we sing/write/pray/talk/preach about it often. But do we believe it? 

MERCY -

a. compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence

b. blessing

c. the disposition to be compassionate or forbearing

Compassion. Toward an ENEMY (so who are we then?). Pity. Blessing. Perhaps that is why we cry "Lord have mercy on my soul." As if to say "Daddy, don't get the belt!" 

We're told at the end of the New Testament to wait in the mercy of Jesus Christ to be brought into eternal life. Because Jesus died so that we don't have to. He had compassion on us, stuck in our battle with Human Nature -- stuck in our battle with the ENEMY. 

It seems like the definition of Mercy should be exactly what causes us to have the strength to "Live Love". 

1 Peter 4:8

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

On Sundays we sit in our chairs at church and we raise our hands and we say "Halleljuah, Praise you Jesus!" and then we go home and we turn on the game and we open a beer and we loosen our pants and scratch ourselves and then we take a nap and go to the grocery store and make mac n' cheese for our kids before putting them to bed and then we iron our work clothes and watch the 10 o'clock news before climbing into bed and lying awake for an hour thinking about finances (it's a run on for a reason). And we have no idea why we started our day with church in the first place. It's our routine. It has nothing to do with the worship of a Lord who saved us from certain self destruction. 

Jesus hung on a cross so that your sins could be forgiven. He had compassion on all of our poor unfortunate souls.

Even though Ursula is the "bad guy," it reminds me of sometimes how we try to "show mercy" to those less fortunate than us. Like we're doing them a favor. Like we are owed some grand reward now because we "helped" them. Well, to quote my ever-wise mother: "Would you like a Brownie Button or a Chest to pin it on?" What have you really done? Have you helped them? Or have you helped yourself?

Live Love goes right along side Love God and Love People. If these two things are happening within your life, Living Love should be easy. We should be so over-filled with the love of God that it should be obvious. 

Growing up, my brother would pray for homeless people every night as he was going to bed. He'd pray that they would have a place to sleep and food to eat. I laughed at him. (Look, last we already established that I was the world's most destructive child ever, so I might as well admit my faults now and continue to work on improving!) He was 7 and it was hard for him to go out and physically make a difference at that age and so he did what he knew he could do, he prayed. As he grew older, though, he lost that sense of compassion. He's still a very compassionate person, it's a great trait, but he has stopped praying for the homeless on a regular basis and he has stopped working to make their circumstances better. And frankly, most of us have stopped those things too.

It's not because we're bad people who wish ill on others. We're just busy. But if you think about it... Jesus did ministry for just two or three years. He had two or three years to change the world. Think of what we can do in a lifetime? 

I can never claim to grasp the type of mercy that Jesus possesses. I will never reach that level no matter how hard I try. But trying is the key. TRYING to be like Christ is what gives us the distinction of being Christ followers. And honestly, if how I treat others at this exact moment in time is what Christ was like, I wouldn't want to follow him either.