Living in the Spirit
July 29, 2022
Scripture Reading:
Colossians 3:1-11
Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! –Colossians 3:5-11
The question was asked in my Sunday school class this week, “Does loving everyone mean we have to like them?” Everyone laughed but is a good question. Merriam-Webster dictionary list ten different forms of the word like. I picked the first verb form, to be suitable, pleasing, or agreeable to (a person) and to feel attraction toward or take pleasure in*. What matters most in differentiating the words like and love perhaps is how we respond to the other. In my limited experience as a direct social worker, I did not choose the clients with whom I worked, but once I met them, I could tell the difference between those I looked forward to visiting, those I did not mind visiting, and those I did not look forward to visiting. These possibly define the briefest spectrum of the attitude of liking. The act of liking or not is spontaneous, a gut-level reaction. As a professional, I was required to both get past the emotions of favoring some people and distancing myself from others. My job was to help whoever was assigned to me.
“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” ― M. Scott Peck
Love is a choice of desiring the very best for oneself and for the other. In God’s grand scheme that means all others. Choosing to love someone may require us to look deeper into our “liking” to discern from where our gut-level response came and whether we need to address it.
Prayer: Lord, grant us the courage to love one another and the insight to discern whether our likes and dislikes are meaningful for us to address. Amen.
*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Like
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.