Of the Spirit (part 8)
The great hope of a parent is that loving their child will seed love in their child’s heart too. Which fits right in with John saying, “We love because he first loved us” in 1 John 4:19. It’s like an underlying principle of life, that love begets love. Give love and it creates love.
And Jesus’ dealings with Israel tap into that great principle of life too, because “concerning Israel (quoting Isaiah 65:2), ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people,’” Romans 10:21. Day in and day out, century in, century out, Jesus had never stopped loving them, never stopped crying out to them, “Come to me, trust me.” And many centuries later in John 7:37 he was still saying it.
And what was their response? “On hearing his words, some of the people said, ‘Surely this man is the Prophet.’ Others said ‘He is the Christ,’” verses 40-41. But others claimed he couldn’t be the Christ, because Scripture said he’d come from Bethlehem, not Galilee. “Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. Some wanted to seize him,” verses 43-44, and the chief priests and Pharisees wanted him arrested (45).
So much for love begetting love, because for all Jesus’ great love for Israel it hadn’t created love in them. And parents, to their great dismay and disappointment, discover the same thing, that loving their children is no guarantee that their children will become loving too. Like the Israelites, their children can also stubbornly resist love and become obstinate in their reactions. And how many parents then flagellate and blame themselves later for not doing a good enough job of loving their children?
Marriages can go the same route too. Loving one’s spouse and overlooking his or her faults is no guarantee of a happy, loving relationship, or that loving the other person will change them for the better. And that too can be a shock, when it becomes apparent in practice that “love doesn’t always conquer all,” and that all those syrupy songs about love everlasting don’t jibe with so many marriages breaking up either.
Which is why Jesus stood up in the Temple and talked about “streams of living water flowing from within them,” because in that was the key to love begetting love…(more on this tomorrow)
Buck To Basics 