Consider the story of the rich young man who asked Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus tells the young man that he knows the commandments and proceeds to list a few of the 10 Commandments. The young man responds by saying, "All these I have kept since I was a boy."
While all three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) include the account, only Mark includes the next line:
"Jesus looked at him and loved him." (Mark 10:21)
Jesus then proceeds to command the young man to sell his possessions and come to follow Him. The young man then walks away sad, "because he had great wealth."
What strikes me about this unique insertion by Mark is that Jesus' expression of love toward this man is radically counter-intuitive to the wisdom of the world. The passage says Jesus loved the young man... but what does Jesus then proceed to do? Welcome him into the Kingdom? No. Encourage and reassure him? Not quite. Gently correct his false assumptions "in a loving way"? Hardly.
Jesus loves him by exposing the area of his life that he cannot give up to God. The man worshipped wealth and was unwilling to give up his money and possessions to follow Christ and the most loving thing Jesus could do for him was to strip him down and expose him for who he really was - not to others but to himself. Jesus allows the rich young man to see that in his current state he is not truly willing (as he foolishly tried to showcase) to do what it takes to follow Christ.
This is the confusing, counter-intuitive, radical love of Jesus - cutting right to the issue that truly matters: salvation. You can see it elsewhere: the woman at the well (John 4), Nicodemus (John 3). Jesus is concerned with a person's soul at the risk of others perceiving him as unloving. But true love cares for the other person, not the way I will be perceived.
So how does this practically apply to our lives? Three things I think we need to take away from this truth...
- Allow the Word of God to reveal to you what areas in your life you might not be willing to give up for the sake of following Christ. Allow Christ to do to you what he did for the rich young man. He loves you too.
- Sometimes loving others means pulling the roof off their heads and exposing their hypocrisy or sin.
- Be willing to sacrifice your reputation for another person's salvation.
True love is not talking about the weather when you know the person you're speaking to is lost. True love is not reassuring someone they're a good person when repentance and faith in Christ is what they need. True love hurts sometimes. If someone has cancer and they need a deep surgery to remove the tumor and we give them a massage instead, that's not love! Be bold enough to love someone in the hard way of Jesus.
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