A Legacy of Love - 

The Paradoxes of Love

“My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12-13 

“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:2-3 

The Garden of Gethsemane confirms Jesus’ ultimate act of love, his death on the cross, was not something he wanted to do. The joy that this act would result in – humankind’s eternal fellowship with God possible because his death removed the taint of sin that had soiled our relationship with our Creator – was offset by the pain – of anticipation, of exclusion from God’s presence, of injury, of death  - as Jesus contemplated his near future.

The paradox of love is its joy and pain.

The paradox of love is its self-assertion and its self-denial. An act of love requires initiative and commitment – a decision that what has to be done is right and proper, an act of worship of the God of love. But, it will be an act of self-denial if it is to be truly God-like. It will seek no reward for one’s self, it will simply sit as a pointer to the God of love.

Love acts are vulnerable. The lover does for the other in a way that is open and intended to be fully seen by its target; the beauty of this vulnerability carries with it the ugliness that comes with the fear that the love might be rejected.

God’s love is freely given. His commitment to our restoration to him is the deepest commitment.  We can accept his love freely – we cannot pay the cost of it, and that cost is removed. Our response to accepting this love is a life committed to serving He who saved us when we could not save ourselves.

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It would be a mistake to think that all acts of love in our community have been easy to make. Love is costly, love is hard, love is sometimes the last thing we want to do.

Our founders and forebears made costly decisions because they loved their Lord, and wanted to see his name glorified through the operations of our Christian school, Donvale Christian School (now College). 

In many instances, their acts of love were given with little idea of the outcome. They may have had glimpses, but our current reality is all the more blessed because of their obedience to give freely, in love – trusting God to do his work.

Now it’s our turn – to act in the now to love in the tension of its paradoxes. To trust God that he will use our acts of love together for his kingdom’s sake. Making a difference in the lives of those with less, those who need more, those who are vulnerable and hurting, those who are unable to ask for it. 

Let’s together be known as a community that acts exclusively in love because Christ first loved us.

Shalom.