HANDS AND FEET.

How To Love With No Strings Attached.

Any idea why your best friend doesn’t believe in Jesus? Why your neighbor is an atheist? Why your coworker doesn’t understand why you go to church? Why your sister cringes when you mention your faith?

More often than not, a person’s disbelief in God isn’t because of Christ.

It’s because of Christians.

Christians who would rather judge than love. Christians who would rather point out sins than point to a Savior. Christians who would rather debate theological differences than roll up their sleeves and build a home for an underprivileged family. Christians who hate others based on their sexual orientation or race or background, rather than love others as they are because they’re humans made in the image of God.

Christians who have needlessly complicated Jesus’ simple directive to love God and love people.

Jesus Himself, the only sinless Human to ever tread our soil, didn’t judge. What gives us, broken and filthy as we are, the right to? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Do we Christians think that we have to point out others’ sins, errant beliefs, and dogmatic inaccuracies because there’s no other possible way that they could ever figure them out? I assure you that if we are looking for a sinner to admonish, we should look no further than our nearest mirror.

My guess is that when God warns against taking His name in vain, He’s not overly concerned with the profanity in our words. He’s more concerned with the profanity in our hearts: professing that we believe in Him, the Author of unending grace and mercy, and then walking out the door to judge, condemn and shame those who are made in His image. We take His name in vain when we, as those who claim to bear the likeness and heart of Christ, show an unbelieving world the antithesis of the self-sacrificing grace that allowed God to be nailed to a cross.

Love attracts. Judgment repels.

I’m not talking about some contrived, pamphlet-pushing love that bears the intent of clandestinely witnessing to people. I’m talking about love that results in selfless service to others. Love that results in meeting the needs of those in need. Love that results in giving until it’s uncomfortable. Love that expects nothing in return. Love that makes people wonder where it comes from.

Wake up. Get up. Love with no strings attached. Be the hands and feet of Jesus.

How many people have you loved while binge-watching TV? How many people have you served while playing video games or reading romance novels? How many lives have you impacted by staying in your own little Christian bubble? When was the last time you were outside of your comfort zone? When was the last time you gave until it hurt?

This is real life. We get one shot. God has given us the amazing opportunity to be living, breathing conduits of His love and grace. Why would we settle for anything less than being His hands and feet?

The world doesn’t need another televangelist. Another megachurch. Another slickly produced Christian music festival. The world needs clean water. Food. Homes. A cure for cancer. An end to sex trafficking. Peace instead of war. Simply put, the world needs love.

So, how do we get there, you ask? How do our grey, insipid lives become transformed into beautiful portraits of life-giving love? First, we need to try really hard to be better people. Then, we need to write down a checklist of do’s and don’ts, and make sure that loving people is at the top of the list. Next, we have to pretend to love people even when we don’t, and fake it till we make it.

No. No. No.

All we need to do is look to Jesus. Period. When we’re confronted with the depths of our own need for love, and the love lavishly shown us at the cross and every day, our hearts will have little choice but to respond with love. For God. For others.

Spend time reading about, thinking about, meditating about the life of Jesus. The death of Jesus. The way He treated people. The way He loved. Gave. Served. Healed. Washed feet. Wore a crown of thorns.

“So many lives, searching to find out what love is, but searching is all that they’ll find. This is the love, that Jesus would give up His life and carry a cross that was mine.”

God is love. Love is everything He is, not just one of His many attributes. He is what love is. He is what love does. Love conquers judgment. Love shatters sin. Love casts out fear.

When His love takes hold of our hearts, we’ll find that love pours out of us naturally. Gracefully. Humbly. Purposefully. We’ll find that opportunities to love present themselves in a mind-blowing way. We’ll find that the more love we give, the more love we have to give.

We’ll find that we are the hands and feet of Jesus.