To Encourage You

1 Corinthians 6:11-13 “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

Are you familiar with the term “unrequited love”?  It means love that is not returned or rewarded. It’s a state of affairs that is truly sad, for love wants what is best for the one loved, but if the other party won’t receive it, that benefit is foregone. Paul expresses just this anguish in his words above.  He truly loved the church at Corinth in spite of their wayward ways. They were a church that had been stained by ungodliness and false teaching. Paul, because of his love for them, had been very truthful with them. He had pointed out their sin, although it had to be difficult, for isn’t this one of the most difficult things there is to do, i.e., to point out problems in the lives of those we love? It’s a matter of “tough love,” where we love someone too much to ignore things that may bring pain and destruction into their lives.  It’s like that with our own children. The Lord has told us in His Word that “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (Proverbs 13:24). But discipline can be so very difficult to practice. It’s so much easier on us to let something slide, but to do so eventually results in pain and difficulty in the lives of the one we say we love.

Because there are always others out there who want to cajole and encourage evil and self-destructive behavior, the one who needs correction often gravitates to those who make them feel better about themselves, although in so doing it brings about what is obviously not better. It’s that way in families, as bad influences are often at work to pull our children away from us.  And it’s that way in churches, when people are so ready to turn to preachers that will itch their ears and make them feel good about themselves when what they really need and what the God Who really loves them would want for them is to expose the sin and bring the correction that yields a truly abundant life.

It’s such a painful thing, particularly when we want what is best for our own children and others whom we love, to want to share our hearts with them, but they aren’t open to it and thereby restrict their affections towards us, much like the Corinthians did towards Paul. And thus, Paul’s subsequent instructions to the Corinthians, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14), i.e., unbelievers who had infiltrated the church, for to do so was not better for them in any way. All it did was influence them in ways that hindered them from the fullness of the blessing that is the love of God. 

So, if Paul felt this way, and if we feel this way about the people in our lives that we love, think of how the God Who is Love feels about our unrequited love. Listen to the words of Jesus as he longs for the love He had for the Jews to be returned for their own eternal benefit: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).

May God help us to not turn against the love He wants to shower upon us by turning to things and people that make us feel good in our sin, rather than to those who would tell us the truth, the things that most certainly are good for us.  Indeed, they are the very best things, for they come from the heart of our loving God.