“Keep company with Him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of Himself to us. Love like that.”
-Ephesians 5:2 (The MSG)
Love. It seems like one of those things we’re always chasing after. The average American says they love something at least once everyday! But may I present to you that maybe we don’t really have a hold on what real love looks like? Sure, there’s the love between husband and wife, or best friends, or children and parents, but there’s something even deeper than that!
Let me take you further into love and what it looks like, and the way that love responds. Sit back, relax, and get ready to have your world shaken!
The most important Person that we could talk about for the subject of love is Love Himself, Jesus Christ. He is humanity’s number one example of love. He has such a great love for us that He died for all of our sins so that we wouldn’t perish but have eternal life.
Example: the woman who was caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1-11). Jesus could have chosen to condemn her like the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted to, but He chose to let her go free and told her to sin no more. That is so amazing! Jesus gave her something that, by the law, she didn’t deserve but the love He had for her surpassed the law and religion. It’s as though His love for her rewrote the rules!
Jesus is NOT religious. His love is not based on what we did, right or wrong, but on the fact that we are children of God! That alone is basis enough for Jesus to love us, even in all of our sins and shortcomings.
[hr style=”2″ margin=”30px 0px 30px 0px”]everydayMISSION:
Extravagant: Exceeding the limits of reason or necessity or proper; spending much more than necessary.
Jesus went beyond all the normal limits of love by dying for our sins, we covered that, so, now the question is, “How do I do that?”
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 talks about the several different ways that love behaves: patient, kind, never envious, does not boil over with jealousy, is not boastful or full of itself, is not prideful, does not act unbecomingly, does not insist on it’s own rights or it’s own way, is not touchy or resentful and pays no attention to a suffered wrong, it does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but bears up under anything and everything that comes and is ever ready to believe the best of every person.
That is extravagant love! Does that sound like your everyday love? I want to encourage you with this: because we have Jesus’ Spirit, the Holy Spirit, living in our hearts, He will help us everyday to love extravagantly and without caution if we listen to His leading. You can rewrite the rules for someone, just like Jesus did!
Now that you know these things, I challenge you to practice loving in speech, in deed, and sincerely with the help of the Holy Spirit.
[hr style=”2″ margin=”30px 0px 30px 0px”]everydayCONVERSATION:
“Father, I ask you to help me in the area of loving others just the way that You and Your Son love people. I fully intend to let the Holy Spirit help me in this area so that I may love people the way that You would love them. Thank You for this in Jesus name, amen!”