Loving Like Jesus
"Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'. (Matthew 24:37-38)
We hear it all the time 'love your neighbor as yourself'.
For a very long time I had thought that I was loving like Jesus all my life. But then this summer I was really challenged to think, "How often am I hesitate to love others if I worry they won't accept me?"
Did Jesus hesitate to love because he feared he would be rejected? No. But if we go throughout our lives hesitant to reach out and love others because we are afraid of rejection or feel like the love won't be returned are we really loving like Jesus? Well, no. While I never would have wanted to think that worrying what someone is thinking of me could be considered being selfish, I'm realizing that it is. Because I am still focused on myself by worrying what someone may think of me.
I don't want to go on too much off topic here but I feel like true humility and loving selflessly can kind of go hand in hand. See, something that I have realized as I have talked with people and saw this quote by C.S. Lewis off of pintrest (hah, yeah...) is that we think we are being humble when we think less of ourselves, but we are still focused on ourselves even if we are criticizing ourselves or analyzing ourselves. It's still about us. So humility really is to not think of yourself as much. Whether that be pride or criticism.
And I feel like if we focus on ourselves too much as we interact with others and reach out to them, then we aren't selflessly loving.
Here's a couple of questions I want you to think through: How often do I talk to people just to talk to them so I'm not alone or to see what they can do for me?
Or am I talking to them because I genuinely want to know how they are doing? Do I really care about those around me or do I care about what they can do for me?
The thing I have realized though I don't want to admit it is that I selfishly love more than selflessly love. And that's not loving like Jesus. Jesus loved selflessly and put others before him. When God calls us to love others He wants us to love them selflessly without asking for or expecting anything in return.
Are we going to be able to love selflessly on our own? of course not! We are all too flawed and have naturally selfish hearts that always look out for ourselves above others and even can desire to do a good thing but have a selfish motive. But we can with Jesus. And yes, we will wrestle to want the recognition for making that person's day or serving here or there-but we can daily pray every morning, heck, even every second that by Christ's power in us-we would love selflessly.
And I think that's were it starts. It starts with prayer and asking that Christ's power in you help you to love as you are called to love. We're human, we're going to wrestle but if we want to be like Christ then we need to recognize that we can't be like Christ without him and not only acknowledging his power in us to love but also admitting to him that we need him to love selflessly.
What does it look like to love like Jesus for you?
Have you found that you love selfishly more than selflessly? If so, don't just let that be. Address it and confess it and admit that you can't love selflessly without Christ. None of us can. We need him everyday if we're going to live out our daily lives how he wants us to.
"His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness" -2 Peter 1:3
We hear it all the time 'love your neighbor as yourself'.
For a very long time I had thought that I was loving like Jesus all my life. But then this summer I was really challenged to think, "How often am I hesitate to love others if I worry they won't accept me?"
Did Jesus hesitate to love because he feared he would be rejected? No. But if we go throughout our lives hesitant to reach out and love others because we are afraid of rejection or feel like the love won't be returned are we really loving like Jesus? Well, no. While I never would have wanted to think that worrying what someone is thinking of me could be considered being selfish, I'm realizing that it is. Because I am still focused on myself by worrying what someone may think of me.
I don't want to go on too much off topic here but I feel like true humility and loving selflessly can kind of go hand in hand. See, something that I have realized as I have talked with people and saw this quote by C.S. Lewis off of pintrest (hah, yeah...) is that we think we are being humble when we think less of ourselves, but we are still focused on ourselves even if we are criticizing ourselves or analyzing ourselves. It's still about us. So humility really is to not think of yourself as much. Whether that be pride or criticism.
And I feel like if we focus on ourselves too much as we interact with others and reach out to them, then we aren't selflessly loving.
Here's a couple of questions I want you to think through: How often do I talk to people just to talk to them so I'm not alone or to see what they can do for me?
Or am I talking to them because I genuinely want to know how they are doing? Do I really care about those around me or do I care about what they can do for me?
The thing I have realized though I don't want to admit it is that I selfishly love more than selflessly love. And that's not loving like Jesus. Jesus loved selflessly and put others before him. When God calls us to love others He wants us to love them selflessly without asking for or expecting anything in return.
Are we going to be able to love selflessly on our own? of course not! We are all too flawed and have naturally selfish hearts that always look out for ourselves above others and even can desire to do a good thing but have a selfish motive. But we can with Jesus. And yes, we will wrestle to want the recognition for making that person's day or serving here or there-but we can daily pray every morning, heck, even every second that by Christ's power in us-we would love selflessly.
And I think that's were it starts. It starts with prayer and asking that Christ's power in you help you to love as you are called to love. We're human, we're going to wrestle but if we want to be like Christ then we need to recognize that we can't be like Christ without him and not only acknowledging his power in us to love but also admitting to him that we need him to love selflessly.
What does it look like to love like Jesus for you?
Have you found that you love selfishly more than selflessly? If so, don't just let that be. Address it and confess it and admit that you can't love selflessly without Christ. None of us can. We need him everyday if we're going to live out our daily lives how he wants us to.
"His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness" -2 Peter 1:3
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