Every day, everywhere, to everyone
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
In March of this year the National Religious Broadcasters association held a convention discussing, among other things, the decline of Christianity in the modern day.
Among the various points brought up in the convention, a particular interest was placed on the lack of Christianity in schools.
Seeing the NRB’s interest in that topic caused me to reflect on just how great a preoccupation our modern church has on seeing Christianity taught in schools.
This preoccupation with shifting responsibility leads us to our focal point: “bears all things,” from the above passage.
Christ-like love requires us to be willing to bear certain burdens.
One of the most important burdens we are called to bear as Christians is the burden of responsibility.
From the beginning of God’s relationship with humanity, as described in Genesis, we were given responsibility. Indeed, true love demands that we take the responsibility and the initiative to ensure our love is properly acted upon. Would we view the love of Christ with the same reverence if our Savior had sent one of the apostles to die on the cross in his stead?
Doubtful, because Christ’s choice to take up the personal responsibility and put His love for us into tangible action is what proves that love to us.
So, then, why does it seem to be such a pervasive belief among modern-day Christians that passing the burden of responsibility onto a public school system will somehow prove the love of Christ to a desperate and hurting world?
How can we hope to be taken seriously as beacons of the everlasting love of the eternal God, when we can’t be bothered to teach that love ourselves? People are not being driven away from Christianity by a lack of Christian high school courses.
People are being driven away by unloving, gossiping, judging congregations professing to represent Jesus Christ. People are being hurt by mundane businessmen substituting seminary degrees for genuine godly love and spirit while living unrepentantly in all manner of sin. If you ask a non-Christian why they identify as such, they’ll not say it’s due to a lack of Christianity in their schools. Almost ubiquitously, non-Christians will say they lost interest in Christ because someone claiming to carry Christ’s love treated them with ungodly hatred.
As humans, we can’t be perfect, but we do have a God-given responsibility to love, at the very least.
If we truly want to see more people thirst for the knowledge of Christ, we must be the salt of the earth. if we truly want to see more people come to know Christ’s love, we must bear the burden of that love every day, everywhere, to everyone.
