Big, history-making decisions have been being made all around the world in recent months as politicians have campaigned hard and voters have attempted to discern in the midst of all the chaos of the name-calling, mud-slinging, blame-games and media biases, what is really being said (or not said).

As the political opinion wars have raged across social media, I have tried to be quiet and not react to some of the things I have read on Facebook or Twitter as it would be just that – a reaction. Reaction never leads to anything positive, therefore I have kept my thoughts to myself.

However, there is one thing above all others that has caused a deep reaction within me and it has nothing to do with political opinions. It has to do with love and what love outworked looks like, as well as what it looks like when love is absent.

I do not claim to be anything close to a theologian. But I do believe that what the Father teaches us through Scripture about love is quite straightforward, simply and clearly stated, with not much room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation. And there is a clear relationship between the love the Father has called us as His children to live out towards others and the words that we speak to and about others.

Jesus is a good place to start, as He is the beginning and the end, the Source of all that is good and right and true.

In Matthew 5, Jesus warns us about speaking words of insult out of anger in our hearts. And throughout the gospels, the only time you hear Jesus speak words that could be considered insulting is when He is rebuking the religious for the state of their hearts because they should know better. Otherwise, He always seems to find a way of helping people to a place of repentance and recognition of their need for Him through wise and discerning questions, touching those places within them that needed His love and healing. He didn’t call them idiots because they had made some silly decisions or chosen a bad path or they held views that weren’t necessarily in alignment with the Kingdom of God.

In Mark 12, Jesus says that the two greatest commandments are “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” And the second is this: “`Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no commandment greater than these.’ There is no commandment greater than these. Wow. In Luke 10, in the same account, Jesus goes on to explain who your “neighbour” is. And He uses the example of a Samaritan, a person with whom a Jew, especially a Jew who considered themselves to be of the most devoted and obedient, would have no interaction with whatsoever but would have looked down on and would have gone to great lengths to avoid.

So, according to Jesus, the One who we have pledged our lives to follow in word and in deed, one of the two greatest commandments in all of Scripture commands us to love even those who we consider the most opposite of ourselves, those we would consider (for whatever reason) the most disagreeable, the most off-putting, the most vile.

So, aside from the example Jesus gives in Luke 10 of caring for our “neighbour’s” physical needs, what does this love we speak of look like?

I think one expression of this Kingdom love is honour. The dictionary says honour is to ‘celebrate or show great respect for someone…’

Now what about when we feel someone is not deserving of ‘respect’, much less ‘celebration’?

That’s the thing about God. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned with the term “deserving.” And I’m so incredibly grateful for that aspect of God! If He based His love, mercy, grace, kindness and goodness towards me on my “deservedness” then I would never know Him. And I think God wants me to remember that in my interactions with others. And He also wants me to remember something that is of the highest importance about others. That every single person I encounter is created in His image. When the Father said to the Son and Holy Spirit, “Let’s make man in our image” He didn’t say what we would probably all suggest would have been the smarter thing, to make man in His image after man had made all the right decisions and proved his submission and devotion. No, He said “Let’s make man in our image”, end of story. And whether I like someone or not, whether I agree with them, whether I think they are wrong in all their thinking and actions, nevertheless, they still bear the image of God.

C.S. Lewis has a brilliant perspective on this topic in his book The Weight of Glory:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

Jesus said that the world would know Him by seeing His love in us and between us. What has the world been seeing splattered across our social media lately?

If still wondering what the public expression of our personal opinions has to do with love and honour, just read through the books of James and 1 John. And then there is the famous 1 Corinthians 13.

I would like to gently suggest that we as the Church (of all nationalities and political leanings) have largely abused our “freedom of speech” and rather than being “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” as Scripture teaches us, we have been flying about like birds that have been frightened senseless, and much of what has been coming from our mouths has been toxic and even poisonous. And it makes me sad. My own attitudes and words have made me sad. Even more, it breaks the heart of God.

I believe that God is longing for us as His children and His messengers of hope and truth, to be speaking words of life over our nations and our leaders (including potential leaders), voting with wisdom and discernment and conviction, reasoning with one another in love and with kind words. And most especially, praying for our leaders and potential leaders as He has encouraged us to, calling them into the fullness of their purpose as those created in the image of our God, celebrating and honouring His image reflected in them, even when it’s maybe difficult to immediately see; and speaking words of kindness that maybe to us seem “undeserved” but could be what helps them towards becoming all that God intended for them, as our wise friend C.S. Lewis suggested. After all, is that not the same kindness we have been shown by the Father Himself?

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world…” Matthew 5:14 (The Message)