And Then Jesus took it up a notch. As if loving God and Neighbor (even stranger and enemy) , with all we have, even as we love ourselves is not hard enough, the Jesus of the Gospels COMMANDS that we "Love one another as I have loved you (Agape)." John 13:34,35 It is His New Commandment,
The Agape Jesus modeled in the Gospels is full of compassion, confrontation, advocacy, sarcasm, exhortations, admonishments, tenderness, mercy, hard lessons to hear, unconditional, undeserved grace and self-sacrifice. Hard enough for you to emulate yet?
It is not enough to love the easy ones to love - those who love us (Luke 6:32-36). We are commanded to forgive the ones who ARE actively killing us, as did Jesus, give mercy without judgment to the undeserving (Luke 6:37,38) as did Jesus and look beyond ourselves in order to live this active commitment on behalf of the other (Matthew 16:24) that we must do to follow Jesus. If we say we are His followers, do we not need to follow Jesus, both what He taught AND what He did(Luke 6:46)?
I sometimes have my issues with Paul, but I believe Paul got it right in Romans and Philippians, largely - some of the most beautiful, powerful and enduring applications of the theology and practice of Agape and Grace...
more powerful than I Corinthians 13, I believe, is the teaching in Philippians 2:1-11 on Agape...
by definition, active commitment on behalf of the other requires that we "look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others." We are commanded by Paul to "Have the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus..." so that we, having so changed our minds, our thinking (see Part I), will say and do as Jesus did - Agapao as Jesus did, even in self-sacrifice.
It really is that simple. It really is that hard. If you say you follow Jesus, you must go where Jesus leads you. "Love one another as I have loved you."
One can see why some have come to self-justify with mere worship, praise and tithes as if that is being faithful to the one who never asked for them, but who commanded this.
Are you ready to be THAT loving and gracious? Are you ready to truly follow Jesus?
Pastor Jamie
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