Love Is the Final Fight: Faithful Resistance in an Unjust World

February always feels layered to me.

It’s Black History Month- a sacred invitation to remember the resilience, faith, brilliance, and resistance of a people who have loved God and neighbor in the face of unspeakable injustice. It’s also the month many call “love month” with Valentine’s Day, conversations about relationships, intimacy, and affection filling our timelines.

And yet, as we celebrate history and talk about love, we are also living in a moment marked by deep unrest. ICE raids. Attacks on the Black church. Policies and systems that continue to crush the vulnerable. A climate where fear feels intentional and injustice feels relentless.

So the question I have found myself wrestling with lately and has become unavoidable: What does love look like in a world like this?

When I think about love and justice together, I can’t help but think about Dr. John Perkins and the words he has carried for decades: “Love is the final fight.”

That sentence doesn’t sound soft to me. It sounds costly. It sounds confrontational. It sounds like Jesus.

Finding Language for the Call

I first encountered Dr. Perkins at a time when I was wrestling with my own calling. I knew God had placed a deep passion in me for the marginalized. I knew injustice grieved me. I knew I was called to something beyond the four walls of the church, but I didn’t yet have language for it.

My pastor connected me with the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and sent me to a conference in Chicago about fifteen years ago. That experience didn’t just inform me; it named what God was already stirring in my spirit.

Since then, my journey has remained deeply connected to this work- serving with CCDA, learning from leaders shaped by the movement, and continuing to wrestle with what it means to live out the Gospel in broken places.

Love That Has Been Tested by Fire

Dr. Perkins’ words carry weight because of what he endured. His brother was murdered by a town marshal. He himself was arrested, jailed, and brutally beaten by law enforcement. And still, he chose love.

To be totally transparent, that’s the part that unsettles me, well, probably many of us, at times. Because love, when you’ve been wronged, is not instinctive. Love, when systems are stacked against you, feels unreasonable. Love, when injustice is personal, feels impossible.

I’m writing this through tears. This isn’t theory for me, it’s deeply personal. I think about the conversations I’ve had with people who have watched those they love being taken from their homes by ICE. I think about elderly neighbors living with quiet fear, wondering if the support they depend on-Social Security, basic assistance- could disappear next, just as SNAP benefits previously did for so many.

These are not headlines. These are people. These are families. These are sacred lives made in the image of God.

And it is hard, and heartbreaking, to hold all of this while still believing we are called to love boldly and fight faithfully.

So, here’s the question I had to answer for myself: How do you fight systems of oppression without becoming consumed by hatred? How do you resist evil without letting it remake you?

That’s what I believe Dr. Perkins meant.

Love is not the absence of resistance. Love is the posture of resistance.

Isaiah 61 and the Call to Faithful Action

Scripture doesn’t let us separate love from justice.

In Isaiah 61:1, the prophet declares:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor…

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives…”

This is not a polite Gospel. This is not a quiet calling. This is a disruptive, restorative, liberating mission.

But here’s the tension we all probably feel: How do we live this out in a world that keeps wounding us?

How Do We Love and Fight?

Loving as an act of resistance does not mean being passive. Let me say that again… it DOES NOT MEAN BEING PASSIVE! It means being anchored.

It means:

• Keeping your ear to heaven

  You cannot fight earthly systems without divine direction. Prayer is not retreat, it is strategy. Discernment matters because not every battle is fought the same way.

  
  

• Staying connected to community and resources

  You are not called to carry the weight of injustice alone. God never designed us to serve in isolation. Find your people. Learn from others that have gone before you. Connect with organizations who are doing the work of social justice.

  
  

• Refusing to return hate for hate

  This is the hardest part. Anger may rise, and sometimes rightly so, but hate will hollow you out. Love keeps your soul intact even while your hands are at work.

  
  

• Letting love shape the method, not mute the message

  Love does not silence truth. Love tells the truth without becoming cruel. Love confronts without dehumanizing. Love holds firm without losing compassion.

  
  

The Final Fight

Love is the final fight because love is what outlasts systems. Love is what survives policy shifts. Love is what exposes injustice without becoming it.

This month, as we honor Black history, as we talk about love, as we lament the pain in our world, may we remember this: We do not fight because we hate what is wrong. We fight because we love what God intends to make right.

And that kind of love? It’s not weak. It’s not naïve. It’s courageous.

Love is the final fight. And by God’s grace, it will be the one that wins.