What is beauty, what is Love?
This past weekend, I was honored to speak at Cru Women’s Retreat. As women, I believe we should be confident and empowered by our identity in Christ, whether we are Asian, Black, Latino, White, etc.
Women’s Retreat really showcased this love, and coming together and listening to each other stories, and testimonies truly reflected what it meant to be beautiful and good in a world today that seems so polarized and impure.
As the other speaker (Jospehine) talked about Beauty in the seminar and what it was like for her personally as a young, Black girl growing up in the US, it was really evident that God was using her powerfully -to contrast of what the world tells us Beauty is, and what God sees. She referenced Proverbs 31. In brief, Proverbs 31 shows the commendable aspects of a woman of God, and I realized reading through it that not once was there a physical aspect mentioned that was praised. Proverbs 31 paints this woman as hardworking and loving and smart.. it is not until the end of this chapter that charm and beauty is mentioned. Proverbs 31:30 says: Charm is deceptive, and Beauty is fleeting but the woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
So in brief,diversity is good. God made us diverse and beautiful, and that’s such a good thing. Our identity is that of called Beloved.
And that perfectly segwayed into my talk, which asked the question, “How can we love well, especially as we are clawing our way out through our own hardships and struggles? How can we preserve a child-like soul, disallowing the world to harden our hearts?
In Matthew 22, Jesus was asked by an expert on the Jewish law: Jesus, what is the greatest commandement in the Law? And Jesus’ response: Love the Lord with God with all your heart, soul and mind. And the second is like it: Love the neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and prophets hang on these 2 commandments.
Did you know that in the Old Testament, there were 613 ‘laws’ in the books on how to live (do this, don’t do this)? When I was ten, I did something called AWANA on Friday nights at church, memorizing verses, getting cool prizes, and prideful if I did well and others didn’t But Jesus says in the verse that we don’t need to memorize these verses. We don’t need to memorize the 613 laws… because all those laws can be summed up in the two: Love God and people with all your heart. That is our calling. A radical LOVE.
You can lead all these ministries and recite verse and be filled with the Holy Spirit during worship (circa Kim Walker in How He Loves Us for reference) but if you don’t have love in your heart, then you get nothing out of that, it means nothing. If you sing songs, but if there is no love, then we are just making noise.
1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
This is a strong statement. And a hard truth. I mean, I know Jesus condensed all 613 laws for me so it would be easier… but I don’t know if this is any easier. I ask Jesus, why couldn’t you have said the greatest commandments as “do not murder or take Sabbath on Sundays? Because that would have been a lot easier for me to follow.
There’s many people in our lives where we think, “Man, I can’t love them. Maybe I even hate them.” If we’re honest with ourselves, love is not easy… And it shouldn’t be easy. Love can be messy, love can be hard, love can be painful, it can be difficult. Especially biblical love.
In Matthew 5: 43-48, we’re not just called to love people who love us, or who are like us. Jesus says, yeah we’re called to love but how we do it sometimes, the easy way is not always the set apart way. Even people outside of church love each other well.
So the message here is this: Love people who aren’t like you, who you don’t agree with. Love people who have a different skin color than yours. Love people who have a different background than you. Love people who are annoying to you. Love people you have a hard time with. That’s what love looks like. That’s the love that God calls us to do. And it’s not an easy love.
It’s so difficult that even the Church has a hard time. And the sad thing is that what the church should be known for, is what they are least known for. “Church is judgmental, people put on a facade, betray each other” are just a few things I hear. But this is what Jesus wants” When people look at the Church, I want the people to see people who love each other well, and love people outside of church well.
So we know this now. Then how do we do it? How can we love well, knowing that there’s going to be people that hurt you, disappoint you? It could be friends, family. I’ve been through it. And it hurts like hell, and I wondered before if I could ever function like a normal person again. But God reminds us that pain shows that brokenness exists. But when the enemy can get us to focus on the pain, then he got us. Sometimes we try to run away from the people and things that hurt us with food, alcohol, drugs, even Netflix, etc. We become dishonest with ourselves, not confronting this pain, and that’s when the enemy got us.
We should invite God into that pain and hurt we received from other people, the world, and carry with courage and determination, knowing that there is breakthrough and healing on the other side.
And God knows most of all what that heartbreak feels like. In fact, Jesus being full God and full man, enabled him to go through all the temptations, emotions, and heartbreak that we feel when we feel wronged or hurt. BUT what does Jesus do (the cliche yet reflective question of all)? He loves them. He loves us. He loved the very people who crucified him (Luke 23: 18-25)
SO how do people love well?
First, we have to know what love looks like, and what love is not. Love is not about being best friends. You don’t have to be best friends to love on someone. Love is also not about being in agreement with someone else. There’s this temptation to think that because I don’t agree with someone, that I can’t love them. You CAN be in disagreement and still love because love is not about agreeing with someone. Love is not about being drawn to someone all the time. You don’t need to FEEL the affection or ‘feel the love’ to love on them. Love doesn’t depend on feeling. The world seems to tell us that love is carried by feelings and the consequences of that are reflected on the millions and millions of broken marriages and families, who ‘once loved each other.’ Love is a CHOICE. To say, I choose to love you, even though there will be sacrifices and hurts, to choose to love is the love that God calls us to grow in.
Summing it up in a few words, it’s putting someone else’s needs in front of your own needs (1 Corinthians 13). Love is about serving other people. And this biblical love shows that the world’s definition of love is messed up, because it’s so consumed by lust. What is lust? Lust is the opposite of love, getting all that I can get, taking all that I can take, whereas love is about giving. Lust is not just sexual but it can be in other things. That’s why so many marriages are falling apart, because the world is telling us to focus on ourselves. People say that marriage is death to self but when you have a child, its taken up another level of death to self (and sacrificing many of the things you want, like sleep). Love is focusing on other’s needs. Love is not about getting but giving. And this is what makes is so challenging, as it goes against our human nature.
I was so glad when the women’s panel during retreat referenced marriage and what that looks like, taking mind of what love is defined as in the world and in the Bible. Have you guys ever seen those marriage proposal videos? (They always cheer me up when I need a pick me up in the day) You see, the Bible has this narrative of getting in a loving relationship with him. The Bible is essentially about God relentlessly pursuing us throughout the OT and we constantly push him away. He’s good to us and lavishes us with gifts and blessings and land and love because we wants us to be in a relationship with him. And when we run way from him, he comes to us, running after us, protecting us, healing us from hardships that we go through and the wounds we gather. And we start listening to him one day. We know that he’s the perfect God and for him to extend and pursue a relationship is so humbling yet confusing Because when we hurt him, we know that our sin gives him pain and break God’s heart. And we decide we want to be with God but because of our sin and his holy nature, we can’t be in the same place. So that’s when Jesus comes down to us, with love, choosing to sacrifice himself on the cross for our sin, tearing the veil in the process. You see, when Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross, that was God’s proposal. He proposes to share a life with him, to have an intimate relationship with him.
And that’s so amazing. God loved us. Loving through the Struggle. He’s empowered us to do the same.
P.S. Here is a bit of audio during worship at Women’s retreat. The sweet, sweet voices of the ones who God loves. And they are called Beloved.
