THIRTY-ONE

Sincere Love

Matthew Chapter 20 records a moment days before Jesus will enter Jerusalem. James and John’s mother comes and petitions that her sons be given a place of honor in heaven. The other disciples hear of this, and they are indignant. Jesus had to sigh as He, once again, saw them struggle to understand what His “sincere love” was all about. He gathered them together, and He shared these words: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many,” (Matthew 20:25-28).

Jesus painted the picture of His kind of sincere love: a love that we are called to share. Don’t use power to overwhelm others. Don’t seek to be great. Don’t strive to be first. Don’t expect to be pampered and served. Give our lives away to rescue others.

We worship a Lord who has done all of this for us. How often, though, does our love have a di erent tenor? How often are we, like James and John, jockeying for our power and position?

Robert Raines once prayed a prayer that tragically captured the human condition:

“Lord, I size up other people in terms of what they can do for me; how they can further my program, feed my ego, satisfy my needs, give me strategic advantage. I exploit people ostensibly for your sake, but really for my own sake.

Lord, I turn to you to get the inside track And obtain special favors, Your direction for my schemes, Your power for my projects,

Your sanction for my ambitions, Your blank checks for whatever I want.”

If we are honest, we can hear Jesus say, “This is the how the world lives, but it shall not be so with you.” We are called to pursue a higher form of love. A purer, sincerer love that we are given by our Lord Jesus.

Years ago, when my son Jay was three years old, he developed pneumonia. We could not get him to take his medicine, and he was a sick little guy. We reached the point that we had to put him in the hospital so that he could have an IV to deliver his medicine. I will never forget the moment the doctor entered the room. My sick little three-year-old was in that big bed, hooked to medicines and monitors. The doctor saw the scene, and this overwhelming look of love and compassion flooded his face. Jay was not just a patient. He responded as a father, and that moment meant so much to me. I got it. I could not bear to leave Jay alone, so that night, I crawled up in that bed and held him in my arms so that he could sleep.

When we practice sincere love, we don’t have to think about serving or being last. We just respond from a heart that has received love, from a heart that had been held and comforted by everlasting arms, from a heart that simply knows no other way to respond. Our Lord Jesus has shown us how to love. Let us follow His example.