Simon Son of John, do you love me?
Love is not a slicker programme or a forced offering. Love is not transient, irritable or resentful. It does not boast or rejoice at wrongdoing. To love requires no theological degree or space filled in on a form. Each heart was built for love, and therefore longs for love, the love of loves. Our lives were founded upon love, the very fibres of our body knitted together with love. Love is the most monumental exchange, a love the church should be known for, yet instead heralded because of its absence.
With a God of love, surely His children don’t remain the loveless ones?
For months I asked Him how to love my city. What it looked like to channel the love from His heart ,and how to respond to what my eyes saw. What I practically was to do with the men and women I pass each day, sprawled on benches, hats to catch the coins, grubby beards, and unpolished hands. And then with a soft coax, He lifted the veil from the mystery. A mystery that was maybe never covered. For love looks something and my prayers had perhaps become a masquerade to do seemingly nothing. I backed myself into the corner and excused myself, because, was it not dangerous for a young girl to approach a homeless man alone? Wasn’t it insensible to pass money to the homeless when they may just use it for purposes that I didn’t agree with. Problem was, it turns out that it was fear that had bound me in chains. See, I know what love looks like- I have pages written before me of a man who did nothing but love. Pouring Himself out, a currency of miracles- never leaving a man, woman or child unhealed. The one who took time, spent time and gave time. The one who held the dust laden feet of his disciples and washed them in the cleansing flow. The one who gave love and love abounding.
I know what love is because my face is held in the hands of Him who could crush me, yet carefully caresses my face in gentleness, singing lullabies of love. The One who hides me in His shadow from the weight of the world, who lays my head between His shoulders and runs His fingers through my hair. The one who dances with me through the rooms of heaven, giggling and flaying His colourful robes. I KNOW what love looks like. I’m a student enrolled for eternity in understanding and knowing the love of all loves- The One has made me the one who is forever changed by the intimacy of His embrace- His life thrashing through my veins; liquid love.
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And, as I behold Him, is that not what I am to become? As He feeds me, am I not to feed His flock? So why do we act as if there’s an alternative, like we’re students upon a different programme that leaves us exempt from loving. There’s no high road- or bi-road, it’s the marriage ceremony of love and service- ‘Simon Son of John’ He asks, ‘do you love me?’.The revelation we’re looking for, and His reply: ‘then feed my sheep’.
There is a world, a church, a body who have no qualms receiving the love of God, but appear to have every qualm giving it out. A church continually buying into the very thing we never pour out. A people with no reserve to lift our hands to receive- making sure we claim every bit of what we walk into church for, yet, we walk past a man on the way home, his hands in the same posture- but sat on the cold hard ground, hands un-sanitised and body unkempt. He is longing for the very thing we just received, yet we place nothing in his hands, whether it's Jesus or or the shrapnel that weighs us down.
And there's the: "oh but i couldn't possibly do that", so we wait until the month or the season where we'll be brave, where we'll be courageous and confident. Let us instead wait for the flash from heaven, the loud and thunderous voice in our ear or the word of knowledge first. No…we'l wait for them to come to us.
Never has there been more evidence for a people of God needing to be free from themselves. We don't need signs, pointers or prompts, we need to love. Faith requires action (James 2:17), for wasn't it the woman touching the hem of Jesus's garment that made her well, Peter stepping out of the boat that allowed him to skim the surface and Abraham carrying his cherished son up the mountain for his life to be spared.
Many will die missing the opportunity to hear of the Saviour they long for, while we wait until we're qualified. We can't afford to keep stumbling over what we do not know, or fear, when what we do know demands response. We must become the action that disintegrates the attack the church has recieved. The stories that crowd the headlines that become gossiped for bringing 'shame on the faith', we so quickly defer, yet, perhaps they pale in significance to the most offensive of all crimes... A faith and people proclaiming love, a faith founded upon love, yet walking the streets like the loveless ones.
It's when we misinterpret our Father, that the world gets a warped perspective of God. We're selling the world a faith that is insular rather than all encompassing, a people who are fearful rather than free, stern faced rather than soft and a God who is ruling with a baton rather than beckoning His children to His knee. Why do we act surprised, when Jesus asks something of us?
I don't think that time will come where are fears are made fine, we're meant to function from a place of fear because it draws us to the Father, to bring all the praise back to Him. We’re not called to feel comfortable, because we weren't put on this earth for us. We’re not called to settle down, we’re called to step up. Stepping into the wild-in to a place where lovers of the King occupy each street corner. Where homosexuals become the most loved members of the church, where crime is reduced, where the homeless are re-housed, where the destitute employ their dreams, where we have to seek new areas, move to new spots as the drug lords, prostitutes, stealers, dealers, and floor sleepers become the new faces of our faith.
Oh, this is not the outcry of a radical, neither is it the heart cry of an evangelist. If you believe in Jesus, if you love him, you pick up your cross. Praying for people on the streets, hanging out with the poor and destitute- that's just another day having Jesus as King, in a world where radical is our only offering, so much so that it doesn't become radical any longer.
We need to let go of a world we were never created for in the first place. To push out the excess that hinders His entry. We were created by Him to live for Him. Do you want to be like Jesus? Do what Jesus did. "WWJD?", He'd do what He saw the Father doing- He'd be down with the broken, loving the hopeless, heartless and pained. What clearer message and picture do we need than His life. Why do we work so hard for a degree, for a promotion, for a graduate scheme. Work so hard to make sure our kids grow up in a stable home and are well fed. We make so much effort with friends, we cook brilliant meals, we work hard to keep our body trim. Yet, when it comes to Jesus, we seem to not work hard at all. Because of course, isn’t that right…God requires nothing of us??
Instead, we make Christianity fluffy. We sanitise; watering down the back breaking pursuit of carrying the cross. It becomes cozy morning meetings with coffee and cake, smoke machines and attractive riffs, pined after worship leaders and dating circles. The slick production material, cute church outfits and free Sunday morning childcare. We craft arenas that champion no requirement beyond Sunday's four walls, never letting anything extend beyond the room in which we'd seemed to master the revelation. Circles that were always meant to be extended become increasingly smaller, continually rejecting the disciples that are never made. We leave our enclosures but for a minute, much the same, passing by the lady crying out for food to feed her ten children as we scurry home to feed ourselves from a full fridge..
Oh, this is not the outcry of a radical, neither is it the heart cry of an evangelist. If you believe in Jesus, if you love him, you pick up your cross. Praying for people on the streets, hanging out with the poor and destitute- that's just another day having Jesus as King, in a world where radical is our only offering, so much so that it doesn't become radical any longer.
Tonight I gazed into the eyes of that lady with ten children, her name is Eugenis- I wonder how many have asked, for I hadn’t asked before a few months ago. And, just like Jack, I was one of the 17,000 people he told me walked past him each day. Oh sure, I’d shot him a glance, a quick hello as I’d thrown some money in his hat- but known him by name, no? Really known him, no. These past few weeks I’ve been able to spend a little time with Jack and his friend Alice. Jack studied animation at Bournemouth university, ex- military, Cumbrian, voice as smooth as coffee. And Alice, his childhood friend, a pre-occupied adventurer, usually off sussing out a spot where they can sleep for the evening. One day as I beckoned Alice over to me so I could hug her, I looked in her eyes and told her she was beautiful. As her tiny, abused body, hugged me back she said ‘it’s so nice that you treat me like a human’. I think, and I know that Jesus’ flock, these men and women, cast out and down, would choose love any day of the week than a coin thrown at their feet. To know the relentless love and colourful nature of a God who not only sees them as a human but sowed and knitted them to be so.
We need to re-question what we’re here for. To recalibrate our minds into the supernatural rather than the natural. I ask myself whether I am here to fetter away my days, or whether I’m here to make them intentional, whether I’m to sit in coffee shops reading about healing, or to be out healing people. Whether I’m going to spend time talking about my dreams, or spend time making my dreams happen. Whether I’m going to represent my Jesus for who He is, or be who He’s not.
I raise my hand to the messy underbelly of knowing God, to the one where many neglect or dare to tread. To the one where I search His face out so much- even if it means I die. To the one where I step up rather than settle down. The one where no area of my heart is reserved for anything but Him. The one I’d sacrifice marriage, children and grandchildren to know Him better. The the one where homeless or hungry I raise my hands in praise to the one who is still my provider. I say yes to the pursuit He wanted us in from the start. A life without limits, the one beyond the promised land not just before it. A life so hungry that heaven is magnetised, so drenched in the fragrance of heaven that people are healed simply being in my presence. A life where miracles become my medium, angels my friends. A life where demons are cast out, chains broken, hearts restored. A life that is devoted in singing songs to Him not just about Him. A life that paints, through my movements across this earth, A God who is not encased in plaster of paris, motionless and passive- rather a God who is colourful, powerful and overflowing with joy- the God in the thick of our day by day lives. To the one who in knowing, cost the lives of nearly all His disciples- stoned and crucified, and asks for our lives too. I don’t want the fluffy or the watered down- I want my life sold out as the one He paid the price for. See, if we love Him, we’d want to believe He requires much of us, but more so, we’d want to give Him much; give Him everything.
God places each one of us on a treasure hunt, to sow pockets of the Kingdom and tease out the good in the individual. To go after the one. He chooses us as vessels for others to encounter the living God. To find His treasures. To help feed His flock.
Right now there’s thousands dying for knowing Jesus while we act as if in denial to the one who we so freely love behind closed doors.
He calls to you as He calls to me:
“Megan…Do you love me?”
“Yes Daddy” I reply
His answer.. the one I’ve always known:
“then feed my sheep” (John 21:17)
I know what love looks like, and so do you.
Come out of hiding.
We need to re-question what we’re here for. To recalibrate our minds into the supernatural rather than the natural. I ask myself whether I am here to fetter away my days, or whether I’m here to make them intentional, whether I’m to sit in coffee shops reading about healing, or to be out healing people. Whether I’m going to spend time talking about my dreams, or spend time making my dreams happen. Whether I’m going to represent my Jesus for who He is, or be who He’s not.
I raise my hand to the messy underbelly of knowing God, to the one where many neglect or dare to tread. To the one where I search His face out so much- even if it means I die. To the one where I step up rather than settle down. The one where no area of my heart is reserved for anything but Him. The one I’d sacrifice marriage, children and grandchildren to know Him better. The the one where homeless or hungry I raise my hands in praise to the one who is still my provider. I say yes to the pursuit He wanted us in from the start. A life without limits, the one beyond the promised land not just before it. A life so hungry that heaven is magnetised, so drenched in the fragrance of heaven that people are healed simply being in my presence. A life where miracles become my medium, angels my friends. A life where demons are cast out, chains broken, hearts restored. A life that is devoted in singing songs to Him not just about Him. A life that paints, through my movements across this earth, A God who is not encased in plaster of paris, motionless and passive- rather a God who is colourful, powerful and overflowing with joy- the God in the thick of our day by day lives. To the one who in knowing, cost the lives of nearly all His disciples- stoned and crucified, and asks for our lives too. I don’t want the fluffy or the watered down- I want my life sold out as the one He paid the price for. See, if we love Him, we’d want to believe He requires much of us, but more so, we’d want to give Him much; give Him everything.
God places each one of us on a treasure hunt, to sow pockets of the Kingdom and tease out the good in the individual. To go after the one. He chooses us as vessels for others to encounter the living God. To find His treasures. To help feed His flock.
Right now there’s thousands dying for knowing Jesus while we act as if in denial to the one who we so freely love behind closed doors.
He calls to you as He calls to me:
“Megan…Do you love me?”
“Yes Daddy” I reply
His answer.. the one I’ve always known:
“then feed my sheep” (John 21:17)
I know what love looks like, and so do you.
Come out of hiding.