Love Must Be Tough

Below is what I wrote for our March 2015 newsletter.

“Love Must Be Tough” is the title of a book by Dr. James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family.  In his book, Dobson writes concerning marriage and the difficulties of marriage.


Isn’t it interesting that it is tough to love the person you chose to be with and to whom you chose to commit yourself?  It isn’t as if you were randomly assigned a spouse.  You chose your spouse!  
Yet, love must be tough, because even in this relationship in which we voluntarily choose to commit to loving another person, we struggle to love them.
That “love must be tough” is shown in our families as well.  As parents age and their children have to make decisions regarding their care, it is tough for both parents and children.  Yet, children care for parents in spite of how tough it is.
If love is tough in a marriage and if love is tough if a family, how much tougher will it be for us in the church?  
You don’t choose the church, you are called into it by God.  You don’t decided to have these brothers and sisters in Christ, you are born (again) into those relationships.  You aren’t bound together because you have chosen each other or by heredity.
So when someone in the church hurts you, it is tough to love them.  When someone in the church is hard to love, it becomes easy to walk away from them.
And yet...we are bound together by bonds that are stronger than bloodlines and human promises; we in the church are bound together by the blood of Jesus and by the promises of God.  We are bound together, not by our love for one another, but by the love of God for each of us that compels us to love one another.


Jesus said; "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:12-14)  These words were spoken in the presence of His disciples, whose feet He had just washed.  In the next 24 hours they would abandon Him, deny Him, and betray Him.  He knew this; yet chose to love them anyway.  He knew this; yet chose to give His life for them.
Love must be tough.  People in the church can be hard to love because they sometimes abandon you and betray you.  Yet, because of the love of Jesus for me, I am able to love my brothers and sisters in Christ through these things.  Because of the love of Jesus for you, you are able to love your brothers and sisters in Christ through these things.

Love must be tough, but we are able to love in tough situation because of the love with which we have been loved by God.
Love must be tough, yet we can love our brothers and sisters in Christ, even when they make it hard to love them, because "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  (Romans 5:8)

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