My take on the world.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The L-Word, part 2

Before reading this post, read part 1 here.

So, to love God, we have to obey Him.  Everything we have must belong to Him.  How does this translate into our everyday lives?

If you love someone, you begin to take an interest in what they enjoy.  You love what they love.  So... what does God love?  What commandment does He most desire that we obey?

"One of the scribes approached.  When he heard them debating and saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked Him, 'Which commandment is the most important of all?'
'This is the most important,' Jesus answered:  'Listen, Israel!  The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no other commandment greater than these."  (Mark 12:28-31)

So, if we love God, we'll obey Him... and the two greatest commandments are to love God, and love people.  Ok, so the first part is a little redundant.  We love God by... loving God.  Duh Rachel.  Great insight, I know.  But what about the second part? How do we love people?

Galatians 5:13 tells us that we have been "called to freedom" in order to "serve one another through love."  Service is a form of giving--just as Jesus gave to us by serving, we're called to love others by serving them.  This means that their needs come above our own.  We are to "outdo one another in showing honor."  (Rom. 12:10b)  This can be applied in pretty obvious ways--letting someone go before us in line, helping to clean up a mess we didn't make, opening the door for someone when their hands are full.  But come on y'all.  Even unbelievers do that stuff.  Especially here in Oklahoma.  So how do we, as followers of the greatest Servant of all, take it to another level?

What if we tried to work out our problems with people instead of gossiping about them to our friends?  What if we actually "spoke the truth in love" instead of just coming and sitting in church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night? What if we set aside time to disciple younger believers?  What if we found a spot where we could work, not for us, but for the Kingdom of God?  What if we were patient with the people that irritate us most?  What if we stopped thinking about ourselves so much and started seeing others as God's favorite people?  God will use our simple, boring, everyday lives if we just give it to Him. Our only other option is to keep it and screw it up!

Like I said earlier, serving is a form of giving.  Love, at its core, is giving.  If there's no giving... it's not really love.  Take marriage for example.  If people get married to get the most happiness they can for themselves... the marriage fails.  On the other hand, if both people want what's best for the other person, then they are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.  They spend time, money, and energy--because they love that person.  So, if we want to love other people, the way God loves them, we have to give to them.

I'm what most people think of as a "broke college student."  By American standards, I'm not wealthy.  But if you take the average incomes of everyone in the world... I'm in the top 10%.  That's right.  A part-time bank teller makes more than 90% of the world.  I'm rich.  I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from.  I have WAY too many clothes. (God's been convicting me of this lately... I need to do something about that.)  I eat fast food way more than I should.  My point is this:  God has given me an abundance of good things.  I don't believe He intended these good things to stop with me.  I believe He wants me to use the good things He has given me to love others.  This isn't just a tithe.  About 5 years ago, I came to the conclusion that tithing 10% is only the very first step.  If I only let God have 10% of my check, that's all He can bless.  The more I give Him, the more He can use me.

The final way that we can love people is the toughest one for me.  If we love people, we will tell them about what Jesus has done in our lives.  Yes, if we're serving and giving, people will see that and wonder why.  They will see the glory of God in us.  But it's our job to follow up on that by telling them about the One who has completely changed us.  I don't know about you, but for some reason this thought makes me really uncomfortable.  Probably because I'm afraid that I will not say the right things, and people will reject Jesus, and I will feel like it's my fault, that I did something wrong.  But last week one of the speakers at Falls Creek told a story about a friend that really encouraged me.  This friend felt like God had called him to share the gospel with at least one person every day for a month.  He ended up witnessing to 30 people.  Guess how many people rejected the gospel?  My guess was about 24--I'm an optimist, I know.  Know what the answer was? Three.  That's right.  Ninety percent of the people the man shared with accepted Christ.  If we obey God, He will go before us.  So we have no excuse not to share God's love with the people around us!

Most of us would say "Of course I love God!'  But what if a random person watched everything we did for a week?  What would they say we loved?

There is a small church that brings in its deposit to my bank.  Sometimes I'm the teller that runs it.  There are probably between two and three hundred checks in this deposit.  I would be willing to bet that about 75% of those checks are for $25 or less.  Maybe 20% are $10.  So, if these people are tithing 10%... they are living off of no more than $250 a week--assuming they get paid on a weekly basis.  Somehow I just don't believe that.  And neither does the world.  Our selfishness is equivalent to looking at a burning building and spitting on it, when the fire hydrant is only a few feet away.  God deserves so much more than our leftovers y'all. He is worthy of everything that I have to give.

I've always said that I don't want a guy to say "the l-word" to me until he's ready to back it up with some commitment.  As I told my dad, if a guy tells me he loves me after he's known me for a month or two, "He doesn't love me.  He just thinks I'm really, really cute and he likes the way I make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside."  Love isn't about feelings.  It's about actions.  "But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us!" (Rom. 5:8, emphasis added.)  Jesus doesn't just get the "warm fuzzies" for us.  He left unimaginable glory, came to a stable filled with straw and animal dung, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and reached out to the outcasts.  Then He allowed Himself to be brutally beaten, mocked, spit on, and finally had iron spikes nailed to His hands and feet... for us.  


That's love.

How dare we throw that word around so lightly.

Will you choose to love God?



Here are some ways you can give and/or get involved with what God's doing in the world:


Compassion International
All Things New
TOMS
IMB
Rapha House
Kids Against Hunger
ChangeThisWorld
International World Changers

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