Loving the unloved

by Thomas Denegre

Unloved is hell.  There is no worse experience than to be unloved.  Orphan babies left untouched in their cribs die within weeks from unloved. Children who are unloved by their parents develop wounds in their hearts that disable them.  Grievances are stored and cataloged bearing a fruit of rage, bitterness, and resentment. Children join criminal gangs just to get a little love. The unloved despise God and see him as the enemy. They see their condition based on a God who is indifferent. God is considered cruel. How are the unloved to be saved? 

This week’s reading gives us a clue to the answer, for it reads;

16 We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them. 17 By living in God, love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fearlessly face the day of judgment, because all that Jesus now is, so are we in this world. 1 John 4:16-17

For the past twenty years as a Christian leader in the Kairos prison ministry I have experienced a bridge that takes the unloved into God’s kingdom.  Here’s what I discovered.

There are two sides to every bridge.  For me to enter the side of the lost I learned a person doesn’t care what I know, until they know that I care.  If possible, it was important  to understand the person first before being understood.

I noticed a few trademarks of the lost.They live under a banner of pride and self-centeredness. They identify themselves with the wounds of their heart and the heavy load of grievances they carry. It's a false and self-destructive identification.  Being teachable was a problem. They carry deep feelings of anger, rebellion, fear, grief, apathy, guilt, and sometimes humiliation.  By being inwardly focused on their misery, they generally could not see the light touching them.  Sadly, they viewed God as being indifferent, vengeful, condemning, or at worse, despising. Life is viewed as survival; not joyful.

When reaching out to the lost, the biggest failure I made was trying to save them with my own love. I did not have the capacity, nor the ability nor the job description to do it.  Paul expressed this in Romans, “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Rom. 5:5

 

Clearly it was God’s job to love and to save the lost while nourishing and empowering his saints to carry out the mission. By living in life union with Jesus and having his words living powerfully within me, it was easy to allow God's love to flow through me. By having an intimate relationship with Jesus, I was capable of extending that same relationship to the unloved. More than anything else the unloved want to be loved. When the unloved knew they were genuinely loved, then they refocus their view from themselves to the source of the love.

By relying on the Holy Spirit I’m able to see the lost person as God does. I channel the Holy Spirit by acknowledging the goodness, uniqueness, value, gifts, and love to that person.  I let them know that before the foundations of the earth were made, they were loved.  How precious is that?

To cross the bridge from darkness into light, the unloved person must trust God and believe that he is a God of love and abundant life.. By being affirmed that they are loved, they must take the courage to cross the line from darkness into the the truth. It requires them to open their hearts to God so he can heal their wounds and empty their grievances. 

As saints abiding in God, we have the intimate relationship and love to reach the unloved.  It is through this genuine love that draws the sinner to trust, believe, open their heart, and take the courage to cross the bridge to salvation.