Friday-Going the Extra Mile

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

1 Peter 4:8,9

Everybody knows what fried chicken is. There are well over 10,000 fast food restaurants where chicken is the main thing on the menu. Almost a quarter of all the people in the US eat fried chicken at least once a week. But all fried chicken is not the same.

Whenever my mom said that she was going to make fried chicken, everybody knew exactly what she was going to do. She always, always, always made it exactly the same way. After the chicken pieces were dipped in egg and dredged in cracker meal, it would be deep fried until golden brown.

But when Mary Ann’s mom made fried chicken, it was a very different thing. After dredging the chicken pieces in flour, she slowly fried it in just a little bit of oil. While this took a lot longer, these little brown nuggets of flavor grew on the bottom of the pan. Once all the chicken was fried, she went the extra mile and made this fabulous fried chicken gravy that made whipped potatoes taste like heaven.

Now, this isn’t a contest. Both kinds of fried chicken were good. Both were family favorites. But my mother-in-law did more than make fried chicken. She went the extra mile and made gravy. She didn’t have to. It would have still been fried chicken without it. But she did something extra to please the people she loved.

And that’s exactly what Peter’s telling his readers about loving people. You see, there’s love and then there’s love that goes the extra mile. God’s kind of love doesn’t just fill us up, it overflows. It does more than what’s expected.

When God loved the world, what did he do? He didn’t just love us, he “so” loved us. It was that “so” kind of love that drove him to go the extra mile of giving his one and only Son. But there’s more to God’s loving us. The only response he’s looking for isn’t to follow some spiritual to-do list. No. He’s only looking for us to believe in him. It’s this believing that give us eternal life[1].

Life without love isn’t kind or warm. It’s blind obedience. No feelings whatsoever. It’s checking off a list of things to do without thinking about what we’re doing or who we’re doing it for.

Think about your cell phone. You press the “On” switch and it lights up. You touch the call icon, and it makes a call. After touching the red hang-up button on the screen, you’re disconnected. It does what it’s supposed to and nothing more. It never goes the extra mile because it can’t. It doesn’t know love.

Because God is love[2], he went the extra mile to show it to us. Not by giving us everything we thought we wanted or needed. Not on your life. God’s kind of love does what’s absolutely best for us. We may not feel it. We may not see it. But God’s kind of love is aimed at bringing us the best. It’s also to bring out the best in us.

So, when it comes to us loving people, we’re to use God’s love for us as the example. He’s the model to follow. We’re to look at how his love has been shown to us and then use his power in us to love other people the same way. And what does his kind of love look like?

It’s deep. It’s not from the surface but to come from deep down inside of us. We’re to stretch out and reach out to others. It’s not up to them to start the love, it’s up to us. We have personally experienced the love of God by him reaching out to us, coming from heaven to bring us to himself.

When we love people like this, it’s the total opposite of being selfish and self-centered. This kind of love isn’t an accident either. It takes effort. You have to think about it and then do it. It takes planning. You have to give up your priorities for someone else and do it without playing the victim. It requires to give of yourself and your resources: time and money

And one more thing. This kind of love isn’t a here today and gone tomorrow. It sticks around. God’s kind of love doesn’t dump us at the first sign of trouble. Oh no. He’s in it for the long haul. Through the good times and the bad. Through the mountains when we feel his love all around. And through the deep, dark valleys when we can’t see him at all.

This is an Earth-shattering kind of love. It means that we won’t talk about other people’s weaknesses or failures. We won’t spread gossip on the internet. Instead, God’s kind of love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres[3].

Isn’t that the kind of love we want from others? Isn’t that how we want to be treated? Receiving this love is great and so refreshing. But showing this kind of love is so, so, so hard. As a matter of fact, it’s impossible on our own. This is why God not only had to show us his kind of love through Jesus dying on the cross, but he also has to give us his power to live like this every day. God went the extra mile for us. Our loving response it to go the extra mile for others. For all the others in our lives, lets love on them.

Noodling Questions

• Describe the last time that someone went the extra mile for you.

• How can we know where the extra mile begins?

• How has God going the extra mile for you changed your life?

[1] John 3:16

[2] 1 John 4:8

[3] 1 Corinthians 13:7