Cheap Hot Dogs, Spray Cheese, and Loving People

One of my favorite foods of all time is a loaded hot dog with sweet relish.  But I can't have just any hot dog wiener.  I can't stand cheap hot dogs, and it's not because I am too refined for them.  It's because they are gross and give you gas.  Have you ever read the ingredient list on a hot dog package.  Things like "mechanically separated pork and chicken, red dye #76, and sodium nitrite," should not be a part of your dinner.  Have you ever had the ones that turn your water red when you boil them-they are my mom's favorites. Ugh!  I like an all natural/all beef hot dog.  Yes, they cost at least twice as much as their mechanically separated counterparts.  But at least I know that I am eating real food that God made.

Now about the Spray Cheese.  Just say that with me...
"Spray Cheese"
Kinda rolls of the the tongue like..."Stomach Cramps"
There is nothing good or wholesome about Spray Cheese.  If I am gonna eat cheese, I want the real stuff not some aerosol concoction.  If there is any Spray Cheese in your home, stop reading this, run to the pantry and throw it away...NOW!  Trust me you are a better person for it.

So what do Cheap Hot Dogs and Spray Cheese have anything to do with loving people.
A Great Deal.
Odds are if you were to the President come over for dinner you would not feed them cheap hot dogs, saltines with spray cheese, and Kool-Aid. For that matter you shouldn't feed those things to anyone unless you wanted them to have stomach cramps.  But the truth is we are figuratively feeding people cheap hot dogs and spray cheese with the way we love them every day.  There is a huge difference between pure, natural, organic love for people and man-made, forced, fake love.  Fake, cheap love leaves people poisoned much like a bad hot dog or aerosol cheese.  Sure natural, organic love cost more, takes more time to prepare, and can be messy.  But natural, organic love also tastes much better and leaves our spirits unclogged.  Love is not something that can be forced in us or out of us.  Loving people must come out of a natural progression in our relationship with Christ.  God will give us the heart and the ability to love people in a beautifully organic way.  He commands us to love our neighbor of the love He has poured out onto us.  He doesn't expect us to manufacture some artificial love to love people with.  That's what the world does.  This world gives out cheap hot dogs and spray cheese in the form of entertainment, bad relationships, and addictions.  We can't allow ourselves as Christ followers to hand out the same love this world is handing out.  Our love must be His love.