Did you hear the story too? I cannot forget it. The university professor assigned his students to go find someone who needed love. The teacher had designed a lesson on "Loving Others" to help people learn to develop and enhance relationships.
Jerry stared after class. "Where do I find someone who needs love?" he asked. Shocked that anyone would have to ask, the professor said, "Why, go down the street and find the senior citizens' home, and just sit with a lonely person."
Jerry did. He found the experience so rewarding that he returned every Tuesday. The elderly residents began to call it "Jerry's Day."
The professor could only look on in delight when, at a Saturday afternoon football game, he saw Jerry walk unto the stadium with a string of senior citizens following him to reserved seats!
Jerry had made a good start in learning to love others.
Romans 12:9-21 reveals the indicators of loving persons. Jerry learned especially how to "rejoice with those who rejoice" and "mourn with those who mourn." The other love gifts include living in harmony, loving with brotherly affection and showing patience in tribulation. Add hospitality and associating with the lowly, and we find ourselves in a mood of celebration with the university professor who saw Jerry develop an altogether fundamental component of personal maturity.
I did not learn whether Jerry grew toward the other love indicators of Romans 12. What we do know is that to be like Christ, Jerry and all of us need to mature until we hate evil and hold fast the good (v. 9), show enthusiasm and stay aglow with the Spirit (v. 11), serve the Lord (v. 11), rejoice in hope (v. 12), bless those who give us a bad time (v. 14), refuse a haughty spirit (v. 16), repay no one with evil (v. 17), live peaceably with others (v. 18), feed our enemies and even quench their thirst (v. 20), and leave vengeance with the Lord (v. 19).
By these loving ways, says the apostle Paul, we overcome evil with good!
Have you noticed the key role patience plays in loving others? One suspects that Paul listed it first in 1 Corinthians 13 because of its interrelationship with all the other attributes in this list. For example: A person cannot show both kindness and impatience at the same time, nor can one demonstrate irritability and patience together, and certainly bearing and enduring all things cannot co-exist with impatience. Impatience means chafing, a fretful attitude, and a lack of power to endure difficult situations—precisely the opposite of love.
Mother Teresa saw Christ, who is love, in everyone. Oh yes, she found some impossible people; but of those she merely commented that Christ had appeared in a difficult garb! Patiently she served everyone—the mean and despicable (often her critics), the dying on the street (they may never have had another expression of love in all their lives, she said), AIDS victims (somebody need to love them!), deserted infants (how often the media photographed her holding a little child!). From early morning till late night, she patiently love all God sent her.
At one point, Mother Teresa, already aged, wanted to retire from her leadership responsibilities. But the sisters of her order voted her back in as their leader. How did she respond? Never a whimper, nor a distressed cry for rest—not that, but the continued patient loving of people in need.
One of my students, working his way through seminary by a job at the local airport, heard that Mother Teresa would fly into Lexington, Kentucky. Sandy invited his work partner, Joe, to watch for her when she landed. Joe, not a Christian, really did not much care to see Mother Teresa.
When she walked off the plane, Sandy and Joe both got a clear view of her eyes. Sandy, deeply moved, commented about Mother Teresa's gentle, piercing look. Joe became very sober and said, "If I get much more of Mother Teresa, I may become a Christian!"
Of course! How could one notice anything but long-suffering love in her? Those eyes could only signal steady, firm adoration of her Lord and his creatures. Christ had captured her heart and expressed Himself through her very spirit.
"This is how we know what love is: JesusChrist laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers" (1 John 3:16).
