When our opinions dwarf our desire to love

​One of the things I've been reflecting on a lot lately is 'how' Jesus loves me. As a Christian, I think I've long understood this very broad concept that Jesus loves me and that Jesus loves everyone and that Jesus expects me to love everyone just as he does.

But love, especially in our world, can be reduced to this rare emotion we feel instead of this really difficult assignment he has given us to do.

The more I understand love, the more I understand just how difficult it is. The more I understand how difficult it is, the more I try to read and understand just how Jesus did it.

There is a story in the book of John that goes like this:______

At dawn he (Jesus) appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”_______

One of the questions I want to ask Jesus one day - I'm sure it will be a popular question so maybe he'll do a heavenly zoom meeting on it - what were you writing on the ground, Jesus?

I wonder if he was writing "we'll know we're growing in our faith when our love for people dwarfs our opinions of them."

Because these Pharisees had caught this woman committing adultery, they had opinions of her that dwarfed their desire to love her. Jesus, on the other hand, was so driven to love this woman that he drove the Pharisees off and encouraged them to take their hypocritical opinions with them.

Lately, I hear Jesus telling me 'you're letting your opinions of people stand in your way of loving them.'

That is a difficult hurdle to love to overcome. Our brains are wired to have opinions. They are wired to have opinions that circumvent our heart's desire to love. Loving like Jesus requires us to do some serious re-wiring of ourselves. It takes discipline and a whole lot of prayer to stop ourselves in the middle of our opinions and consider our obligation to love.

I think one of the things I'm going to try is when I feel my opinions beginning to take over, I'm going to imagine Jesus writing on the ground. I'm going to imagine him writing, "Keith, you'll know you're growing in your faith when your love for that person dwarfs your opinion of them."

Maybe there is a reason we weren't told what he was writing on the ground....