Greetings and peace to all those whose spirits have been guided here,
Today's devotion is titled 'Reflecting Love' from 1John 3:16-18 NRSV
16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
Do you understand the notion of 'love'? Do you understand human 'love'? Do you understand God's 'love'?
Back in 1997, I was told by someone special to me that I did not know what 'love' was. That I did not really understand what it meant to truly be 'in love' with someone. This statement hurt me very much because I strongly felt that the relationship I was sharing with her was based on 'love'. I told her this and she just up & turned around and walked away. So our relationship came to an abrupt end and left me wondering about just what she meant. She did not give me any explanations or any encouragement beyond saying goodbye.
Though we don't fully understand God's love, we can accept it. Even though it's depth is beyond our ability to imagine, we can assume that because He is God -- infinite, perfect, and completely "other" - He is capable of it. We, however, know how short we fall. We are not capable of that kind of love, because self-sacrifice is only part of our nature within a precious few special relationships.
Nevertheless, that's exactly the kind of love to which God calls us. We are to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. He came into this world to lay down His life for us, and He never said that's the end of the story. We are to lay down our lives in exactly the same way. If we want to have God's kind of love, we have to know it's dimensions to the fullest possible extent. The fullest extent calls for the ultimate sacrifice.
John 15:13 tells us Jesus said "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." That is a hard kind of friendship to obey. In fact, this commandment to love each other in the same way that Jesus loved us is perhaps the neglected in all Scripture. It is not that we cannot love each other like that. We usually do not mind going out of our way for our friends, being generous with our money, our time, even forgiving our enemies from time to time. But to actually take the next step into our graves for them is most of time a step we never choose to take. A soldier will give his life to save others. He will throw himself on a grenade or jump into the path of an oncoming bullet --- Why? Selfless love at the highest possible level.
Most of us will only sacrifice ourselves up to a point and not move beyond it. There are lines that we will simply never cross no matter what. We don't 'do' ultimate sacrifices very easily and just for anyone. The flesh cannot just do such a thing in the absence of a uniquely special kind of love for the other person.
That is why it is a certain sign of God at work in a person. Sacrificial 'love', in it's purest sense, can only be borne in us from the divine above. Only the spirit of the sacrificial God can produce sacrificial children. Only Him who is, was and ever shall be perfect can reflect for us a perfect example of sacrificial love.
Ask the hard questions about your love life. Who do you love? How much? Are you willing not just to go out of your way occasionally, but to radically sacrifice for the sake of reflecting God's perfect love? God is Love!!!
God Bless
Tom
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