It's About Love (Part 2)

While in Thailand doing outreach, I talked to an American Buddhist who was wandering the red-light district. I got in a conversation with him, sharing with him our purpose for being there: to talk with the girls and love them.

His reply was, "That’s nice. I love these girls too. They’re my friends."

I asked him how, if he loved these girls, he could stand seeing them see them abused by men and abusing themselves.

He told me, "I don't love one girl - I love them all. I don't want to marry anyone because I don't want all the others to get jealous. That isn’t love."  He continued, “I don't want to have children because they will think that I love them more than the other children around me." The more I talked with him the more I realized that his definition of love was completely different than mine. The word love does not describe its definition.

If we don't teach our children what Kingdom love looks like, how it's defined, and how to activate it, I believe we will miss out on something huge.

I can see a generation rising who knows that love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things  (1 Corinthians 13).

Reading through the list of what God says love looks like (in 1 Corinthians), I always ask the children if they’ve ever seen anyone love like this consistently. Most of them say no, which is not a surprise. Love is a supernatural reality and the only way to access its fullness is by surrendering to it.

When I teach on love, I tell the children that even if they had all the riches on the planet, knew everything in the world, and even if they died for Jesus, if they didn’t have love, they will have missed it.  The purpose isn’t to cause children to be afraid of missing it, but instead to make them aware of what value God puts on love.

I tell my children that if you want to love God and others like this, then you have to surrender to God’s love.

I show them a door and I say, “Just like this door, we can open ourselves and let God flood through with His love for those in front of us.” Even when we don't like the person or they’re really mean to us, God loves them more than we can. So we can say, "God love them through me. Teach me to love."

This is what makes us different from the world.