I’m convinced that I hate myself too much to love others. Or at least, to love others as Christ would have me to love them.
God is love. God cannot be both love and hate, therefore God is not hate. Inasmuch as God is love, He is not hate. If God is not hate, His Son and Himself, Jesus Christ is also not hate. Whereas we are Christians: meaning Christ-like, we are to be of Him and like Him. If Christ is not hate, we should not be hate, neither should hate dwell in us.
The likeness of Christ is the end goal for every Christian, not that it by any means can be gained while living on earth: Paul himself–who if anyone, was the most Christ-like of men– said that he had not attained, neither was he already perfect. Why reach for a goal we know we cannot achieve, you ask? Because when a runner trains for a race, they prepare themselves and tone themselves physically to endure and to excel at the task at hand. By this means a runner is made ready for the race and has the greatest chance of success.
Now, the runner knows that the race track is a circle and that there is no end to it. There is no finish line to receive the glory of being the first to cross: for the judge rates not on speed and agility, but on endurance, and faithful perseverance. Every one who runs receives a reward for their running, but those who kept running even as the years passed on and trials and stumbling-blocks beset their path, they shall receive crowns of glory to lay at the feet of the Master.
We cannot attain perfection on earth, but striving for it causes us to gain the best likeness of it. I’m a broken man, I’m a sinner. If I do what the world does, how can I represent Christ? Christ was not like the world therefore to be like the world is to be unlike Christ and un-Christian. I don’t want to live in obscurity, being just enough Christian to get to heaven but living in the world. No, I want to stand out. You can’t stand out by the deeds of selfishness and pride that you do, for those are things of earth. To truly stand out, we must take on the virtues of humility, servitude, and submission to Christ.
We know these things, their part of God’s commands, we read them, we retain them, but sometimes we have difficulty living them. And it’s not so much of a mindset issue as it is a heart issue. We’re too broken to fix a broke world. We’re hurting too much to help. Not for the consequences of our sins, but from the dissapointment of the father and of ourselves at our sins.
I don’t know about you, but I get angry with myself when I do something I know I shouldn’t, or don’t do something I probably should. The chastisement I deliver to my heart breaks it to where I’m not worthy, I’m not ready, I’m not the qualified to help others. When you’re hurting to much to help, you hurt more. Because you brought it upon yourself by your sinfulness in the first place.
I don’t want to live for myself, I don’t want to hurt any more, I want to make a difference, and that can’t be done lying down. That also cannot be done if I can’t live with myself. A broken heart is of no use unless we allow God to heal it. We can’t be whole until we are first broken.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
-1 John 1:9
Repentance, confession, those are the first steps. The process of healing can sometimes be more painful than the injury itself, but it is neccessary. Until we’re broken, He can never make us whole.
As always, thanks for reading.
—the anonymous novelist