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Pure Love
Sermon by Dr. Bob Benchoff 5/12/02
Jesus Christ is pure love. Today is Mothers Day, a concept linked to pure love, bearing and raising children. Likewise Fathers Day is lauded and honored for the giving and devotion associated.
Yesterday my wife and I celebrated Unmothers Day. Prior to marriage, we had chosen to not have children. Not to be left out of the Mothers Day celebration, many years ago I declared for my wife that the day before Mothers Day was Unmothers Day.
On the cross, Jesus said "Mother, behold your son."
Even in Jesus' youth, Mother Mary had servants do Jesus' bidding, because Mother Mary knew Jesus had abundant love, whole love, pure love.
Jesus did not say "...behold your son." for the purpose of causing pain, but for the purpose of edifying Mother Mary, and for those who would read the story. Mother Mary was already experiencing the grief: when Jesus spoke to her, Jesus' words surely comforted her.
A current popular song declares "[pain is love]". Of course the truth is preferred and easier to understand from the right perspective. The words and meanings of such words as "pain", "candy", "vitamins", "kisses", "work", and "play" each have a relationship with "love". The word "pain" is not "love" any more than the word "candy" is "love".
Some people think "emotions" and "feelings" are "love". It just isn't so. There are many misleading concepts.
Pure love is about faith, hope, and charity. Pure love bears all, believes all, hopes all, and endures all (Reference I Corinthians 13.7 through 14.3; also the book The Problem of Consolation by H.R. Bender copyright 1912, The Methodist Book Concern, NY, NY, page 159: translations).
Longsuffering is a vital tool God freely provides to you, so that you may be pure love, as Jesus Christ is pure love. Only pure love, without spot or blemish can be in heaven. You can receive the bounty of pure heaven that is within you, if you completely fill yourself with pure love.
Lack of longsuffering is akin to selfishness. One may wonder why people have to wait for heaven, and why doesn't God provide heavenly bliss for everyone now and always.
If you had bliss now and always, something would be lost: certain types of good motivation, decision-making, education, and so on. If you had bliss now and always, you would know Christ is good, and so you would lose motivation to repent and you would lose reason to choose wisely.
Longsuffering allows people to become better than they were; and key to that is the important translation derived guidance: how you interpret according to pure love.
There are many levels of love, ranging from emotions characterized by expressed tenderness and affection, to a deep devotion and beyond.
Although the following are typically not pure love, here are some of the more profound love ideas:
Would you pray for someone in some distant place unknown to you, the same way and as often as you would pray for your friend or family member?...No. You believe that your actions have consequences, so you naturally wonder how your prayers for a friend will affect you.
Will you give money to someone you know, or will you give money to someone that you don't know exists?...You give to someone you know.
Because you are close to some people, and know them, and interact with them, when you bless them, you know that you may receive some benefit from your action. You know, for instance, that if you pray for a dying friend and then your friend doesn't die, then you receive a reward of getting to be with that friend.
When you love, knowing that you might derive benefit from that love, how pure is that? Even merchants give something in exchange for something else.
Longsuffering enables you to rise above earthly matters to enter more greatly into God's pure love. You can learn from longsuffering. Why get mad when you have to suffer, when you can turn those relatively minor injurys into amazingly overwhelming awesome blessings through God's pure love? Christ has show you the way, Christ has risen.
If suffering comes upon you, thank God and praise the Lord for the wonderful gifts, knowing that God would not overburden you; and wonder what the good justice is that you should learn from such suffering. If you see a friend or a stranger suffer, what does that mean to you personally and how do you personally interpret it, but first and foremost how does God interpret it. Then is your interpretation in line with God's?
There are a multitude of possibilities for you personally. Should you heal that suffering person immediately in the name of Jesus Christ? Should you learn from the incident and start a grass roots cause to overcome harmful situations of that type? Should you help the victim or the perpetrator? Should you do all these or some combination of them?
God has something special in store for you and yours and those of other flocks. Reasonably learn, reasonably give, reasonably suffer. Don't let your suffering be wasted. Don't have to go through that hard lesson again.
Love all that you receive. Love all that you give and produce. Love not because you receive, love because it is right: longsuffer. Love strangers and help strangers in need.
Who is not your neighbor, who is not worthy to be in your family? If someone wrongly takes from you, ask them not again and suffer their injustice, and pray they repent and love them.
Love your neighbor, love your stranger. Give good measure, pressed down and shaken together, asking nothing in return. Love and love will be given to you, nonetheless love.
Continue steadfastly in righteousness and love all the days of your life. Make a habit of loving all so that love blossoms from you automatically.
If you don't want to love all that God made, including the devil, nonetheless love and let God decide the justice: vengence is mine, saith the Lord. Seek that which is good and waiver not.
Those most unrighteous are those who need your help the most for the greater glory of God. Work not according to their works, work according to the good path God showed to you through Jesus Christ our savior.
Love without measure, and love only according to God's desire. Pure love is about pure justice for all. Pure justice is part of pure grace, within the bounty of the Holy Ghost.
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