1 John 4:9-12 (NLT) God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love–not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.
Observation
Apparently, it is all about love – loving others more than ourselves, loving in the face of rejection, loving those who have not earned it, loving those who don’t understand the immensity and true cost of the sacrifice – in other words, the same love demonstrated by Jesus for us on the Cross. This kind of love is not humanly possible because our emotions, survival instincts, egos, prejudices and self-interests get in the way. We count the cost to ourselves incorrectly – by human standards, not God’s, by selfish interests not selfless ones, by short term gains not eternal ones. It is our nature UNTIL we surrender body and soul completely to the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to mold, shape and change us into that nature of Christ in us.
We can also forget that we did not deserve the grace that God’s Love made available to us. We must be careful to remember that each soul is God’s creation and has value in His sight. When we begin to judge whether another has value according to our standards (“good enough”) – has done no evil, is productive in our society. living within the rules, working hard, or progressing quickly enough along our timeline, our checklist, our standards of achievement – we have lost God’s perspective. God so loved the world that He made grace, redemption, restoration, healing, and love FREELY available to all of us who did not deserve it – the just and the unjust, the kind and the cruel, the lovely and the unlovely, the able and the disabled.
Impact on Me
The culture in which I was raised makes this a paradigm shift for me – from performance-based to grace-based. Fame, position, power and wealth are all considered evidence in this world of worth, being productive members of society. However, Heaven judges differently. Heaven measures me by how I love Him by loving others, by how fully I allow His love to be expressed in and through me, by what I am willing to sacrifice for the sake of another. “No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.” Will I be held responsible for how I use the gifts He has given me to express His love in the world? Certainly, but Jesus is the only judge of how well my gifts have been used.
“Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.” So, just how far does this go? I am reminded that Jesus died for the man who drove the nails in His hands, the man who held the whip, those who yelled, “Crucify.” I am reminded that The Shepherd left the 99 to go find the 1. I am reminded that Jesus said we need to be like little children. I am reminded that Jesus was born in a manger, worked as a carpenter and chose fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot – all common men – to walk with Him as disciples. Am I truly willing to trust that obeying His command to love even my enemies will benefit His kingdom? Am I willing to bear shame and sorrow for another’s sake? Am I truly willing to put myself in God’s hands and let Him choose?
Prayer
Father God, My Maker, My Savior, All-Wise God, I profess that I want to be more like Jesus, but do I draw lines that I will not cross, have prices I am not willing to pay? I don’t want to do so! I want to place myself in Your hands as an instrument, on Your altar as a sacrifice, without restrictions. I pray that You will lead, encourage and guide me to faithfully walk in those footsteps You have set out before me. May I be like Jesus Who had no desire to set His own course but only follow Yours. I seek only to please You. Make it so, in Jesus’ name.