 |
|
August 23, 2015
Jesus
spoke concerning love saying, "This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved
you. Greater love has no one than this, that
someone lay down his life
for his friends"
(John 15:12,13).
It is one
thing to speak of loving commitment. It is quite
another thing to have
that commitment of love. Praise God for the
example of His Son Jesus who
taught with His life how we are to love each
other. In Jesus we see that
standard, method, and heart attitude of love that each
of us must measure
ourselves by.
The
example we see in Jesus is the same actions and
attitude of love which we
should be applying to our family relationships and our
relationships as the
family of God. Which prompts the question:
How are we doing?
Being honest, we all fall short. And, some of us
have some pretty ugly
moments that don't even come close.
Being
part of a congregation is more than just showing
up. Longevity as a
member of a congregation does not always indicate the
quality of our commitment
to our brothers and sisters in Jesus.
The
Church of Jesus Christ, the family of God, should be a
place of nurture,
acceptance, strength, growth, and development.
The Church needs to be a
family of believers in which people can share their
joys and in which hurting
people can have their burdens lifted. How are we
doing at loving each
other?
May we
first realize the truth of what Jesus said, "as I have loved you." Meaning, that each
of us has been loved with
Jesus' sacrificial love. There is no way that
any of us has what it takes
to love each other unless we first come to realize
God's love for each of
us. Sacrificially loving others begins by
surrendering ourselves to God
and accepting His love for us. If we are to love
others, He must love them
through us. To obey God requires His working in
us and through us.
Second,
Jesus commands us to love each other. Loving
others requires the choice
of obedience. Let's face it, there are times
when others are not that
loveable. In fact, there are times when we are
not that loveable.
To love others requires a commitment to love
them. Sometimes, when others
deeply hurt us, the only thing that keeps us
hanging in there is our
choice to obey God.
Third,
the "you
love each other"
command is in the plural. It's a group
activity. We are commanded
to help each other through a mutual commitment to
sacrificial love. Love,
in which the good of the many outweighs the wants of
the few or the one.
May our
Heavenly Father continue to help us each day to live
following the example of
our crucified Lord that we would grow in love for each
other. May we be
so in love with Jesus that we set ourselves aside so
that we are free to love
others sacrificially.