You can sometimes come across a situation where you speak a true concept, yet those who hear what you said comprehend what you said but they cannot reconcile it with all they truly know.
So your words indeed true as they be, fail to impress upon the heart, because some people may have never by actual life experience seen what or how what you spoke actually looks like.
For example, Biblically we are called to “Love our neighbor as ourselves” and even “Love your enemies” and many out there in the world cannot fathom how such a concept is possible and remains to them as “A Concept or Ideal with no reality or actuallity.” They may think “Oh what a noble thought but that is highminded idealism.” Yet this is because all people I’d say are familiar with what they have seen in their own life from an actual reality vs words they hear that sound even nice to them but they have no way to reconcile the distance of what is said from what has been shown to them by life experience.
For some, this may be why so many make anger and hatred synonymous. Because people I would say if angry enough at even a friend may turn against them or abandon them entirely. So given enough experience hearing “I love you from someone” yet if you had some experiences similar to mine, and many other people, you know that talk can be cheap and words may seem wonderful on paper yet often fail in practical outerworking.
Yet the whole Biblical concept of “Love” that is truest, “Agape” in Greek, for unconditional love challenges the minds of those who indeed may crave it the most. Why? Venture to say it is because we know that all of us by nature are corrupted by sin and God indeed calls for “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.” [Deuteronomy 6:5] [Luke 10:27] Yet so often from early on in life we find we all have become sinners that “Fall short of the glory of God” Romans says, and we both have failed to love God for who he is and our neighbor with pure love we ought.
We all though desire such love, “What a person desires is unfailing love yet better to be a poor man then a liar.”
[Proverbs 19:22]
{So many people do like to hide who they truly are for fear of being unloved when people see who they are, the good, bad and ugly. This first started back in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the “Knowlege of good and evil” and they realized their nakedness and hid from both one another and the Lord. We know our imperfections and sinful tendencies so we feel vulnerable before others who may discover our true imperfections. Haven’t we all felt this way when getting close to others? We fear they will see our worst and we may discover they often at times fall short of making us feel accepted or loved like we hoped they would. There is a fear these days among many that I too resonate with because I have been through it myself, the fear of closeness, not because we fear relationship but more so we fear we will get close to those and end up feeling they reject us or see how we are and distance from us.
Yet Jesus said “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” [Matthew 5:3]
The meaning Jesus of this is our acknowlegement of our condition of poorness most is before God, we fail him and one another, yet God’s love is Biblically stated a part of his nature, so is holiness. Here is a hard concept: God does have anger toward sin but compassion on the fallen sons and daughters of mankind seems irroconcilable in the mind of the non Christian especially, but also has been a very tough paradox for Christians even too! For the longest time, I had the hardest time intermarrying God’s disdain for sin and his great love for people who sin, and for such a long time it created a terrible struggle for me by being so hard on myself even as a younger Christian.
Because human school of thought seems to say, “I love you up until you really reach my final limit and up till this offense- you are loved but if you cross this line then I cannot bring myself to love you anymore.” – In human relationships: This pertains more so to those people are real close to and with mere friends they have maybe even a lower threshold for since they are not family or extremely close. Yet often our culture has used anger as quantifiable offenses that creates great anger to [The moving of friend or family to status of enemy] because culture often associates “Enemies” with people we “hate” yet not Jesus, because Jesus in his sermon on “love your enemies” never trivialized the nature of offenses or sin but moved deeper into a heart attitude between the offender and the offending- so what does he say “Love your enemies, pray for them, do good to them without expecting anything in return” and “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you, even sinners love those who love them. Yet love your enemies and do good to them for then your reward will be great and you will be called children of the most high God for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”
By nature we all are bent toward being wicked and selfish! We all by default are sinners till God quickens our hearts to the love of Christ that gives us a higher way to love then the world does. The worldly default human automatic is “I treat you well based on how you treat me and I love you if you love me” yet how does Jesus redifine love? Biblically he defines it in what he taught but most of all his actions gave example of what he taught- then at the end, he suffered the death of a villian and was degraded on a cross that was his execution to show God’s love toward those who would ultimately in that moment reject him, betray him, spit on him and crucify him. Who up until that point claimed that they were “God’s Son” and let their own creation destroy their life to prove how deep the love was? Only Christ, because kings of old ruled by power, force and command, however, God though has that right to do so has shown truest humility in love not because he owes his own a proof of his love or worth but rather he knows the stubborn heart of all mankind and if he had not stripped of his kingly glory to condescend for us then he would not have lost nearly as much as us, no, he would be just as glorified in heaven regardless but what love compelled him to cater to a human creatures that had no loyalty to him or to eachother? He by His own love lowered himself to do for us the truest benefit and save us from the charges of sin against Holy God. Who among you would sacrifice yourself for someone who was an enemy living in animosity against you? What if your enemy stole $10, 000 from you, and by great love you desired closeness to this foe knowing that an act of great mercy would soften his heart so he would in response love you more then he once hated you? So you said, you owe me this but because I do not want to have you imprisoned for grand theft- I will release you from your great debt. Let’s say he knew he was in danger of long jail time and if you did not offer forgiveness he would have no hope. So also, God knows we are hopeless to repay but he sent a sort of check to cover our great debt, His own Son, His own heart of love to release those who receive it by faith!
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