For Today......

Love like Jesus. We hear this all the time from our pastors, youth pastors, Sunday school teachers, etc., but what do we mean? Sometimes it sounds so redundant that we become numb to what it REALLY means. "Loving like Jesus", can also seem impossible sometimes that we don't even try. My plea is for you to not become numb, because love is a command from God.

I am in the process of learning what love truly means. For the last couple of weeks, God has had me read 1 John over and over again. I am still a long way from grasping this concept that we talk about on a daily basis. However, I am beginning to understand that love is not a token of lust for your significant other. Love is not what you have for a well cooked, medium rare steak. It is not even your favorite T.V. show. Love is a choice and love is action.

1 Corinthians 13 gives a good definition of what love is in action.

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This love seems hard to grasp. I mean there are a lot people who I am not very patient with. I am a jealous person. I like to brag from time to time. I sometimes hold a grudge. I have to admit... I am a sinner.

However, when I turn to 1 John I see where it’s not me that does the loving but Christ through me. I, in myself, can not love like I am commanded. Through Christ, however, I can "love like Jesus".

1 John 4 7-12 reads:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

John is instructing us to love one another just like God loved us. We were apart from and showed him hatred by our sins. However, he still showed us love by giving up his life so that we could have life. Therefore, we love him, because he FIRST loved us (v. 19). This is our example to others. They may not love us, but we must love them FIRST. We can do this because verse 9 says God sent his only son to die so that WE MIGHT LIVE THROUGH HIM. It is no longer us doing the loving, but Christ in us.

So now you can love like Jesus.