Fri, Oct 16, 2009
What does love look like?
As I have said this week, I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about God’s love and what it means for us. Of late, I have had this disconnect from head knowledge of God’s love & my heart experiencing God’s love. So this week has been good to go back in study pretty intently, 1 John.
I think that many times we Christians miss the mark when it comes to love. Our pastor said the other day, some Christians act like instead of baptized in water, they were baptized in vinegar… paraphrased by me. It’s suprising to me at times, that we Christians do struggle with loving other people… I mean Jesus said that they will know you are my followers, by the way you love one another.
It does not say that the world will know you are a Christian, Christ follower or whatever by the fish or bumper sticker on your car or by the t-shirt that you wear. No, they [the world] will know that you follow Christ by the way that you love others. And besides after Jesus says that the most important commandment is to love God with all that we are… he followers it up with, the second is to love others.
So what is a tangible, physical picture of what love looks like for us? As I have been reading & studying 1 John this week, God continues to reveal old truths that I have known, but also giving me tangible visions of what this looks like. For instance, in 1 John 3:16, we see that Jesus is the example of what love actually is. It is laying down our wants & desires for others. Even if they have done nothing to obtain, deserve or warrant our love. Think about two examples from Jesus’ life, that of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and at the cross. Jesus laid down the place of honor to do the job of the lowest slave. Jesus, who was sinless and did nothing to receive judgment or punishment, took on our sin, our beating, our death… so we could have real life. This is how we know what love is and the Apostle John says, that we should be willing to lay down our lives for others as well. For the unlovely, for those we dislike, for our spouses, for the boss that we can’t stand, for bully in our schools, for our enemies… should I keep going?
Who do you need to show love to right now? Who is it that God has you around that frankly does not deserve your love… but God is wanting you to show His love to?
Check this out on my blog... http://luke4church.com/2009/10/16/what-does-love-look-like/
I think that many times we Christians miss the mark when it comes to love. Our pastor said the other day, some Christians act like instead of baptized in water, they were baptized in vinegar… paraphrased by me. It’s suprising to me at times, that we Christians do struggle with loving other people… I mean Jesus said that they will know you are my followers, by the way you love one another.
It does not say that the world will know you are a Christian, Christ follower or whatever by the fish or bumper sticker on your car or by the t-shirt that you wear. No, they [the world] will know that you follow Christ by the way that you love others. And besides after Jesus says that the most important commandment is to love God with all that we are… he followers it up with, the second is to love others.
So what is a tangible, physical picture of what love looks like for us? As I have been reading & studying 1 John this week, God continues to reveal old truths that I have known, but also giving me tangible visions of what this looks like. For instance, in 1 John 3:16, we see that Jesus is the example of what love actually is. It is laying down our wants & desires for others. Even if they have done nothing to obtain, deserve or warrant our love. Think about two examples from Jesus’ life, that of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and at the cross. Jesus laid down the place of honor to do the job of the lowest slave. Jesus, who was sinless and did nothing to receive judgment or punishment, took on our sin, our beating, our death… so we could have real life. This is how we know what love is and the Apostle John says, that we should be willing to lay down our lives for others as well. For the unlovely, for those we dislike, for our spouses, for the boss that we can’t stand, for bully in our schools, for our enemies… should I keep going?
Who do you need to show love to right now? Who is it that God has you around that frankly does not deserve your love… but God is wanting you to show His love to?
Check this out on my blog... http://luke4church.com/2009/10/16/what-does-love-look-like/
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