On Being Taken Advantage Of

I shared this thought last night at the community prayer meeting, and I figured I would flesh it out here, because this is something that the Lord has really been teaching me recently.

As I've wrote about earlier, the Lord has really been urging me on to serve the homeless and the outcast. To truly try to love like Jesus loved, in loving the unlovely, reaching out to the social outcast, and seeing the image of God in all people, no matter how skewed that image may have become. This is something that I have come to believe is essential for Christians to do, if we are to truly follow Jesus and continue His ministry to this world.

Anyways, this begins with a small story. A few weeks ago, after the Lord has laid this conviction on my heart, I encountered a homeless man on campus who asked me for money. I offered to buy him a meal instead, so we went to Jimmy John's. When we got there, I told him to order whatever he wanted, and in his slightly drunken speech he asked for the biggest thing on the menu. It was an $8 sandwich. Part of me was like, really? Can't you order the basic $4 sandwich to tie you over? But by the grace of God I kept my mouth shut and gladly paid for his meal.

The Lord taught me a lesson in that instance about serving: when you serve, when you give of yourself in order to love others as Christ loves them, then there will undoubtedly be many instances where you will be taken advantage of. And that's okay, for that's part of what love is.

For in that moment, I felt the Lord saying to me, How many times have you taken advantage of My love? How many times have you rejected my gracious offering to you, instead choosing to spit it back in my face? I came and I suffered, I was rejected, I was murdered, and my love was reduced to shame. And still you take advantage of me. But it's okay, for that's what love is. 


If we are to truly love as Jesus loved, then we have to be willing to put ourselves on the line, to put the needs of others before our own, to lay down our lives. And that can be terrifying, but that's what love is. It can make us feel weak and abused (and may I kindly point you to this), but somehow it is still the greatest thing in the world.


Let us love as Christ loves. Or rather, let us be the channel through which Christ loves. And as His love continues to transform our hearts and minds, may we love others with reckless abandon, as He has called us to.