Do you know what you’re worth? If so, who or what gave you your value?
In my previous post I shared what I thought was the most important thing I know walking into 2020. The idea that it doesn’t matter what else we do well, if we are not loving people well.
That can be really hard to do sometimes, especially if we are depending solely our own strength to do it. I’m thinking generally, but also specifically about how we can “love people well” on social media. Love is a strong word you say. So it is. But it’s what we are going to need if we are to change the way we relate to one another online, and in real life.
We are going to need a lot more than to simply “like” one another.
I love the idea of social media. I love learning about people and relationships, and I am all in for anything that provides healthy connection. But in many ways, social media has become an outlet for every form of abuse you can think of. We seem to have lost all sense of decorum, along with every good thing we have been taught about how to treat others.
We humans like to appear socially appropriate, so we try as hard as we can to live life inside what we think those parameters are. Our ability to do just that on social media, however, seems to go right out the window the second people disagree.
Because we also really like to be right.
The sad thing is, our capacity for both empathy and understanding is so limited when we choose to see life solely from our own perspective. There is no listening or learning going on inside our own personal echo chambers. But imagine what would happen if we could see ourselves and others through God’s eyes? What do you think He sees when He looks at us? When He looks at you? What value do you think He places on each of our lives?
We don’t have to try and imagine.
No matter where you stand today on issues of faith, almost everyone knows and believes we are all born with a moral compass. An innate understanding that there is good and bad, right and wrong in this world. I believe that God has created us with that compass so that ultimately, we can find Him.
When I find myself searching for answers in this life, my faith persuades me to look to what God has to say about things. When it comes to our value, who knows better than the Creator Himself, the worth and purpose of His creation?
Most of us have no idea how much God values and loves us.
I feel so compelled to share what God has to say about us. To speak especially to those who are made to feel like they don’t measure up. Those whose voices are shushed and discounted as irrelevant. To those who are made to feel less than in an way.
It may be something you’ve heard a million times or never even once before. But I can’t think of a more important time in history to reiterate a more important message. To repeat what God has literally been saying since the beginning of time. There are so many voices, so much noise, in our world today. It’s so critical to cut through it all and decipher what is real and good and true.
So here goes . . .
God doesn’t play favorites. He “likes” and loves each of us the same, no matter what. He also knew that we would all need rescuing from ourselves and our sin. Sin isn’t used a lot in mainstream conversation today, so it can seem like a really weird word to use. But sin is simply anything and everything we do that causes us to fall short of God’s perfect moral law. Every bad thing you can think of. Everything listed in the 10 Commandments and then some. It includes all the ways we mistreat one another, in both the real and virtual worlds.
Even if we think we only fall “short”, and that we are overall a “good” person in our own minds, the list of ways we sin on a daily basis is long. Humanity continues to come up with new ways to rebel against God and hurt one another. But all of it can be traced back to the original sin.
Not believing the truth about who God says he is.
Adam and Eve were guilty of it and so is every one of us that has been born since. They didn’t want to be told there was that one thing they couldn’t have, even when they were given access to everything else. They didn’t want to believe anything should be off-limits. They didn’t believe God when He said there would be consequences.
Ultimately, they didn’t like being told no.
And neither do we. We’re all born with the idea that if we want something, we should get it. If you don’t believe that, spend some time with a toddler. They don’t understand that as parents, when we say no, it’s not because we are trying to keep something good from them. It’s because we are trying to protect them and keep them from something that could harm them in some way.
It might be an object, a behavior, an unsafe environment or even unsafe people. But they don’t want to believe us. They want what they want, and they want it now. If they don’t get it, they pitch a fit.
And so do we.
We don’t want to believe God. We don’t want to believe that we need Him or anyone else for that matter. We think we know best. We choose to believe that we should be able to do whatever we want, without consequence. That there shouldn’t be any boundaries placed on us or on our behavior.
But of course, God knew what the results of our insisting on our own way would be. What the cost would be of allowing us to have freedom of choice. He knew that even on a good day, our best behavior wouldn’t be enough to earn our way back to Him. He knew that there was nothing we could do to help ourselves. That’s what sin does.
It hurts us and separates us from those we love.
He knew we needed a plan. He communicated that plan to us in love letter form, using the Bible. He wanted to try and convey to generation after generation just how much He cares for us. He wanted us to know that He would never abandon us or leave us in a helpless state, just as He had promised all of His children who came before us.
No parent would choose separation from their children. As our Father in Heaven, He couldn’t imagine living a day without us, let alone an eternity. He knew that unless He intervened, sin would keep us from Him forever. So that’s just what God did. He intervened.
Romans 5:8 tells us, “. . . that God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He doesn’t wait for us to try and clean ourselves up. He loves us just as we are, right where we are.
That’s what love does.
One of the most well-known passages of the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13. It’s called the love chapter for good reason, as it defines what love is from God’s point of view. It’s been read and recited during countless wedding ceremonies, and is a reminder to all of us all what real love should look like. If you aren’t familiar with the passage, here is what it has to say:
13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
There are some things listed in that first paragraph that are incredibly impressive by anyone’s standards. Speaking all the languages on earth? Having the kind of faith that can move mountains? Knowing all God’s secrets? It’s easy to dismiss those as impossible.
Giving all of our things away to the poor is something we could aspire to if we really wanted. I think God added that example in there to drive the point home. He wanted us to know that even if there something on that list we thought was attainable, we could go ahead and do it. We could even take credit for it. But even so, if we didn’t do it out of a love for others, none of it would count for much in His eyes.
God, the creator of every language, spoke creation into being and communicates with us in ways we can understand. He can literally move mountains. He really does know everything. And yet what He wanted us to understand, out of everything there is to know, is that love is what matters most.
He knew that if we could get this one thing right, everything else would find its place.
That message is summed up best in the very last verse of the chapter. Verse 13 says, “Three things will last forever – faith, hope, and love – and the greatest of these is love.”
God made clear the value he places on love, and the value he places on us, in both word and deed. May we have the kind of faith that makes us want to love others like He does, passing on the kind of hope that never disappoints.
Romans 5:5 “And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us.”
What would happen if we all saw one another through God’s eyes? What does our culture tell us about love that differs from God’s definition? How does the way we are loving others around us compare with 1 Corinthians 13?
Next time, we’re going to walk through the ways loving people well could change the entire trajectory of communication on social media. Let’s be part of the solution.
Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash
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