This began as a travel blog for my time in Nepal but has morphed into a greater journey than that. It has become a journey into the heart of God and the ways of man, learning and growing, becoming and knowing we are not yet what God made us to be, not yet all He has formed us to be. To be not to do…..
To Love others as Jesus loved and loves us…
It means going the extra mile when you see a need, whether it be a smile, a word, a touch, a hug, a helping hand with a job, food, shelter, clothing, childcare, a drive somewhere, money for medicine, being a good listener or prayer.
There are so many ways we can help but too often we get caught up in our own life and we fail to notice others. We fail to see the needs, the open window to joining with God in what He is doing this day. How can others know the loving care of a God that is there if His people, His children, decide to stay safe in their own world busy with things that He did not ask them to do, but that the world says are good and okay?
How can we love if we are emotionally, mentally, physically drained from the doing that the world demands?
How often I see myself on the sidelines, not moving forward into all My Heavenly Father has for me. I hate that I don’t have the energy, time or resources to love others well. That I stuggle to survive each day, trying to meet the demands of man, when My Father has no demands on me but to love.
Romans 12: 1-2 says,
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
God’s will is that we love one another
Real life is a life of love, a love that puts the other first, honors them (whether rich or poor, Christian or not, whole or broken), real genuine love that moves one to do for the other what they would want done if they were in the same circumstance. It goes even beyond that golden rule to a deeper rule: to lay down one’s life for another. To not seek one’s own but to give to the other first, to honor them first, to give them first choice. However, this has to be done without complaining, without reminding others how much you have done but in a quiet, humble attitude always looking out for the welfare of the other before self.
Man drives, pushes, demands and expects, but God leads with loving kindness wanting a relationship with us. He wants us to learn to just be, just be……loved and to love, that is His will for us. To learn to be….loved and be……..love for others.
What does love look like? It looks like feeling what others feel, walking beside the downtrodden and broken. It looks like outstretched arms, to embrace and catch others when they fall. Love looks like Jesus. Love looks like acceptance with no judgement just because others are not like us. Love looks like a hand reached out to support, encourage and embrace as well as an ear bent to listen, really listen to the heartbeat of the person, to really know the person, to know their heart. Love is seeing with the eyes of the Savior who he made the other to be. Love is not demanding others be like you. You may be great, but they are great too, because Jesus made them just like he made you, different but just as great.
We are all different but the same. We have strengths, weaknesses, abilities and the same creator, the creator who loves us all the same, because He knows us He knows how to love us well.
Isn’t that love, to know someone well and then love them well out of knowing them. Is that not why He said to love like He loves, He always loves out of that knowing, not from His own perspective.
Don’t you ever imagine ‘what if’? What if it was me in their position, could that not be the most powerful motivator to get us to truly love one another. Asking what would I want them to do for me if I was the one who…..
I can only imagine…..
Christ loves us without judgment because He took that upon himself, He never quits on us nor gives up on us. His love is extreme and not like this world. Can we try to love each other with that layed down kind of love?
An Adventurous Life 