Friday, April 19, 2013

Acts Of Love Display Christ

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:12-13

Love is not something you choose to do and make apart of your life as a Christian. You are commanded to walk in Love as a child of God for God is Love… 1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The law was put before us and no man has ever kept it, Jesus came to this earth to fulfill the law that we could not and to pave the way back to God… Through Christ we were taken from the state of sin into our current state which is grace… Under grace Christ gives us a new commandment to abide by and this commandment is “love…” The bible says that love covers a multitude of sins and love (1 Corinthians 13) is better than anything we have in life… “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Jesus informs us today of the foundational commandment that we must live by as a child of God… He says, “That ye love one another, as I have loved you…” Love is the building block of our salvation, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…” If it was not for love, God would not have sent His son, if it wasn’t for love, Jesus wouldn’t have died on the cross… Love is more than just speaking words; true love is the ability to act for the greater good of another despite the pain, torment or agony that you may encounter… It would not have been enough if Jesus would have simply said I love mankind (just as we do today), but didn’t act toward showing it… Jesus demonstrated His love when He allowed Himself to be beat, when He stayed on the cross and gave up the ghost… Let us stop speaking words of love, but demonstrate our love toward each other through our actions… Love has to be the center focus of our life because the bible says that “God is love…” 1 Corinthians 13 provides a list of things that are meaningless or unprofitable to a man without love and we see today that Jesus reminds us that we must have love one to another if we desire to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord… As a child of God we are held to a higher standard, we are not only to love, but Jesus says we are to love as He loved us… To love as Christ loved means that we must be willing to sacrifice, we must be willing to look beyond faults and we must be willing to love unconditionally. A lot of times we tend to love people that love us back, but the bible says “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…” We are being called to love more than just our family member and people we get along with, we are to love every person we come in contact with, we are to extend a kind hand to our enemies and speak words of comfort to our adversaries… Often times we will speak the words “I love you,” but never demonstrate our feelings to showcase what we have spoken… Jesus tells us in these verses that the greatest love of all is the ability to sacrifice one’s life for his friends… Jesus is speaking directly to the death that He will endure, but notice that He says, “His friends…” Jesus is not drawing a distinction between who He is dying for, but rather informing us that He considers everyone on this earth His friends… Remember when He was praying in the Garden and the mob came to take Him away, all His disciples fled; when Jesus was on the cross, John was the only disciple remaining by His side, yet Jesus said, “That a man lay down his life for his friends…” Understand that the love of Christ means that we go above and beyond; we go out of our way and sacrifice for others… We demonstrate love toward the one that doesn’t know how to love, we show love to the one who can’t show it back and we lift each other instead of tearing one another down… Realizing that Christ is the only one that could die for all mankind; we are being asked to be able to sacrifice our desires and seek the exaltation of God’s kingdom through our life… To sacrifice and demonstrate our love on this earth, let us focus on lifting up one another, let us refuse to engage in gossip, let us exercise humility and compassion and focus on lifting God daily… Love is an action word, in order for it to be felt something must be done! Jesus said I love you and then died on the cross… Let us speak the words of love to each other and follow them up with actions… Show your neighbor love today and you will demonstrate the love of Christ that resides within you…

BE BLESSED!!!

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