Radical Love
There’s this new trend going around on social media of “this is the year I stop pouring into those who will never pour back”. For the longest time I soaked that up. I lived it. I had spent so much of my life faithfully serving and pouring into others, only to find myself lonely with no one pouring back into me. So when this trend came along it felt liberating and freeing. What it truly ended up doing was isolating me and hardening my heart.
Like everything in life there is nuance to relationships and it’s never that black and white. There absolutely is space and reasoning for stepping away from relationships that are unhealthily one sided and the Bible outlines unhealthy relationships to steer away from.
But we also see the Bible more often than not encouraging us to pour into the lowly. To mutually submit. To think of others with greater love than we love ourselves. If our goal is to be like Jesus, can we truly live a life of not loving those who don’t love us back?
Jesus while I was still sinning (not pouring back into Jesus) died for me, saving me of my sin. Loving me with the greatest love I’ll ever receive. And let’s be honest, we will never be able to love Jesus and pour into Jesus with the same love he pours into us.
We actually see throughout scripture commanding us to do the complete opposite.
“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.”
1 John 3:16-18
““If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
Luke 6:32-36
How different would our life look if Jesus simply stopped loving me and stopped showing up for me because I was a sinner? We wouldn’t ever have the gospel! We wouldn’t ever know him!
Oh how my heart grieves the thought of Jesus living a life of “I won’t pour into people who don’t pour into me”. Yet I rejoice that we are loved by a God who even in the knowledge of his upcoming torture and death, as the result of betrayal by his close friends, still washed feet. Still died for them. Still redeemed them. Still provided a way for them to join Him in eternity.
Jesus lived a radical life. A life that many scoffed at. Even the religious. Loving those who persecute you, loving those who don’t love back, that’s radical. In today’s world we call it naive and self sabotaging. We also love to put clinical phrases on it to make it sound holy when we “fix the problem”. The world wraps it up as codependency, trauma bonding or simply pathetic and desperate. (Again- there are relationships that need holy intervention to redeem true trauma bonding, codependency and insecurity. But those are a different conversation for a different time). When we slap specific terms onto generic situations, we risk believing unholy solutions are healthy. If it’s not Holy it’s not healthy.
The goal of the world is self. Love yourself. Protect yourself. Serve yourself. While Jesus comes in with radial love. Love that did not serve Him in the flesh. A love that got Him mocked. Persecuted. Ran out of His own home town. Betrayed by his closest friends. Love that even his own disciples could not comprehend and doubted. A love that even lead to Him having God turn away from
Him. Why? For me. For my sin. Because he loves with a radical love. The outcome? Holy eternity with Him. Forever being loved by Him. Perfect unity. He would rather risk it all to have me, than to serve himself. That’s radical love. That’s the love we’re called to receive AND called to turn around and give in return. Knowing that if we don’t receive the same radical love in return, we’re covered by His radical love.
My sweet friend, I urge you to not buy into the worlds pretty wrapped up “wisdom” to stop pouring into those who don’t pour back. That’s simply not the way of Jesus. I know it can be lonely pouring into others to be left without the return. In that loneliness- run. Run towards Jesus and His radical love. Don’t run from others. Run towards the one whose radical love never runs out. We know that His love for you also includes Him working in you and for the good of those who love Him. It is good to have relationships that mutually love and serve. It is good to be in community. He will provide that. You just gotta stay close to His chest while Hes working out the good for you.
