Love should be a natural side effect of proximity and closeness with Jesus Christ. I say should be, because far too many believers say "When I get the job I want, I can help people, when I'm at the place I want to be in life, when I do this, or that, or the other." Yet, I see no such stipulation in Scripture. From the first church in Acts 2, people simply helped people the way Jesus did. They loved people. They sought good for their neighbors. Yet we have our own slice if the post-modern, millenialist, futuristic dream to think about. We have our own lives, our own families, and the list goes on and on. On their surface, all good ideas, but really, just excuses to focus on ourselves while our neighbor languishes.
There is not a stipulation on what should be done, or when. Just DO. Jesus talks about this in the Parable of the good Samaritan. The Bad Guy is the hero of the story, and the good guys, the priest and Levite just focus on themselves. The good-for-nothing half-breed got off of his own donkey, stopping on a bandit-laden road to help a man who was in need, bandaged his wounds, let him ride the donkey, and then set him up at an inn at his (the Samaritan's) own personal cost. Reflecting Christ's image is costly. Why? Because His love cost Him everything, and so should ours. Just do good. Just love without stipulation or condition. Love without posting about it or drawing attention to it. Give so that your left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. Just love, and watch how it becomes a natural part of your life.
1 John 4:8-21
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Comentarios