Where were we?

I was trying to answer your question about how we love others. I said it would require a 3 day conversation. Here is where I think we are at. I am suggesting that the question should not be how do we love others, but how do we become the type of person that easily and routinely loves others. The answers to those questions are different.

I am taking the approach of transformation. It is an internal thing where our heart (will/spirit) changes. If our heart is the well-spring of action, then if our heart loves, we will love.

How do we do this? It is about process. Something we (the church) have not been so good at teaching, probably because many of us are tripped up with a misunderstanding of grace, which has made us passive, but desparate for change. We remain passive out of a fear of some kind of works righteousness thing. So let's just sit down and wait. We will "let go and let God." Problem is, at least from a non-theoretical standpoint but from mere observation, it doesn't seem to work that way. We seem to be missing something critically important in the whole mix.

I would suggest it has to do with intentional, well-directed effort. We need to get off our butts and do some things. Call these spiritual disciplines. There are many that serve different purposes. If you go back to the graphic a few posts ago, there are things we can do to practice opening up the channel between our hearts and God's. These are primarily contemplative in nature (silence, solitude, some types of prayer and meditation, reflective bible reading; mindfullness). There are things that we can practice to help strengthen the heart to resist the other selfish influences (yellow arrows) that come from the head (reading and listening to ideas, and intentionally not reading or entertaining some others), body (fasting, not watching porn), and social (who we hang with, community).

What happens when we begin to practice these in an intentional, well-directed manner? A process of change. Check out what C. S. Lewis wrote:

That is why the real problem of a life following Jesus arises where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting God work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.

Jesus never talked vague, idealistic jargon. When he said, "Be perfect," He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all pursuing in life is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.