REPOST: Hurt People, Hurt People. Loved People, Love People. (HPHP/LPLP - Part 5)

Here is the final blog in the 5 Part Series. The first 4 can be seen here (Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3, & Pt. 4). This is a repost of the original posted on July 8, 2010. I wrote it initially as a stand alone post, but there was so much more to this (hence posts 1 through 4). So this is the precursor & culmination of this series...enjoy.

I was listening to a song by Manafest called "Wanna Know You" and there is a line in the second verse that really got me. It says, "Loved people, love people. Hurt people, hurt people." I recently read a book (for one of my counseling classes) by Dr. Sandra Wilson called, "Hurt People, Hurt People." It was about understanding why people that have been hurt continue to hurt others.

With that and for the last six months God has been really working on me about what it means to love people and ultimately Him. So that line in the song really struck me as something that is important for everyone that claims to follow Christ to understand.

Hurt People, Hurt People

I'm not actually gonna say anything about why or how hurt people, hurt people. I am, however, gonna direct this toward those that have accepted Christ's love (the secret is - and it's actually not a secret - Christ loves us all, all the time...we just need to accept it).

I get SO tired of hearing how Christ's people are "done" with someone because they hurt them while they were "trying to love them." News flash...people that are hurt are not there to love you, it's the other way around.

Here's the thing, in going in to love someone that is hurting, you have to expect some resistance. You have to expect them to be somewhat leery of your intentions, because they were just hurt. People that are hurt or hurting are that way because someone they cared for either left them (whether it be intentionally i.e. divorce/break-up or unintentionally i.e. death), betrayed them or broke their trust some how. So you have to understand that they may not be so readily accepting of what you want to give them.

We are called to love people, to comfort the hurting and even pray for those that persecute us. If you are the recipient of Christ's amazing love, you have a responsibility to give it away to others and you have to understand that in trying to love them, you may get hurt. My friend, Grant Clark, has a saying that goes, "Where there's people, there's poop." The idea being that caring for people can get messy and if you are actually engaged in their lives, you WILL get messy.

On the other side of that coin...

Loved People, Love People

If you are a person that has surrendered your life to God and seeks to follow Christ, this is you. If you are actively engaged in a relationship with Christ, in which He is pouring out His love on you, you will love people. In John 15:12 Jesus says, "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." Jesus was telling us that the way He loved us was an example of how He expected us to love each other. If you are truly the recipient of Christ's love, you WILL love others.

The Bible is very clear on this point. 1 John 4:20-21 says:

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters.

So, loved people, love people.

I'll close with this...How badly did we hurt Christ (and still do at times) while He was trying to love us? What if He would have given up on us because He got hurt?

I Will Love Regardless,
Bruce