A few paragraphs on love. Having had my head in the Gospel of Matthew for months, so many statements of Jesus he put to ink are on my mind. I keep thinking about Jesus saying the hearts of many will grow cold. Note the verb “grow.” We could be totally unaware it’s even happening. It’s the natural response to a world increasingly infiltrated by meanness, lawlessness, violence, hate, betrayal and deception. Peruse the beginning verses of 2 Tim 3, for example. If that were a checklist, we’d be able to check every one of those as characteristic of our culture. When I recite those verses from memory, the description in 3:3(CSB) “irreconcilable” always gives me pause. Some relationships can’t be reconciled. I’m not talking about those. I’m talking about the ease with which we simply cut people off. Generally speaking, we’ve become so easily offended and self-serving, I don’t know how marriages — let alone friendships — indoctrinated by this mentality are going to make it for the long haul. They require constant forgiveness and reconciliation. Part of cold-heartedness “growing”will be owed to pure rationalization: why it makes perfect sense for us to turn away or turn on people. I ask you to please resist hunting this down because I don’t want people to harass or draw attention to the person (which is what they’re often seeking). Sometimes people are hateful on my behalf to my haters when I’d never talk to them that way. I don’t ever want that. But I saw someone who has had a near fixation of disdain for me for years say to a person the other day that he or she doesn’t know why God doesn’t kill me. It didn’t hurt my feelings. It made me sad. Something’s wrong there. Oh I get the dislike and disapproval. Sometimes I don’t like myself. But why on earth would you think a world would be better off if the person you disagree with doctrinally was dead? And if you’re already rationalizing that, I also feel for you. Love God. Love others as yourself. Love your enemies. That’s what Jesus said. And he said, “The hearts of many will grow cold.” This has me checking my own heart in this season. And here’s what I’m thinking. If we don’t want to be one of the many, we can’t leave it to accident. We’ll have to be deliberate about loving. We’ll have to fight to love. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul prayed our love would grow more and more (not less and less) in knowledge (not blindly) and all insight (with discernment) so that we may be blameless (“Jesus surely wouldn’t blame me for hating them! Surely he hates them too!”) on the day of Christ’s coming. Natural love will naturally deplete. But we who are in Jesus are not left to our human capacity… “… because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5 We’ve gotta love. And love one another whether we like one another or not. This is how the world will know we are Jesus’s disciples. And when all is said and done, that’s all in the world that will matter.