Try to picture a church board meeting, committee meeting, or parking lot discussion governed by this self-giving, self-perpetuating love. You and I would love each other with Christlike love, and together we would love the third person with us.
Wouldn’t everyone want to be a Christian? Wouldn’t wounded people flock to our church? Such love, however, involves an openhanded death: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16, NIV, emphasis added).
We will have to die to ourselves—to the desire to be first, to control, to be admired, to be sought after. For “we are dead and our life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall be revealed, then we will be revealed with him, glorious” (Colossians 3:3-4, PAR).
But what could be better than being “hid with Christ in God?” That’s exactly where a person in union with God would want to be. As we die to ourselves, we come to participate in a resurrected sort of life (see Philippians 3:11). With such a Jesus-based way of life, we become one who nourishes and cherishes the person next to us.
TODAY’S EXPERIMENT - Consider how you need to lay yourself down as on an altar in order to nourish others. How do you need to interact with others in order to lay down your life for them? Look back through this book at sentences you have marked. What does laying down your life involve?
Perhaps desires, thoughts, and habits, such as interrupting or insisting on your own way? What disciplines is God calling you to? Pray, thanking God for this possibility of living a resurrected sort of life that will extend life-giving love to others, especially in church situations. Ask God to keep showing you not only what you need to lay down but also how to live that resurrected sort of life in Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment