It is Wednesday morning, the wind is pounding away at the siding on the house, the clouds are moving in and it is not quite as bright as it should be at 8:30 in the morning, but the light of God is shining bright in my kitchen as I sit here basking in His word and the words of His servants as I read Christian authors, even if I disagree with their theological premises. I make a point to read authors from all different denominational and theological backgrounds because it effects me in two ways: first, it forces me to consider my own beliefs and really reinforce why I believe what I believe; secondly, it at times sheds new light into my beliefs and lets me reconsider and alter them if I am missing the mark. The whole process keeps me humble and reminds that it will never be the case that I know all there is to know, or that there is only one way to consider Scripture and Theology.
A few weeks back I was reading someone, sadly I don't remember who, but whatever they were sharing in their book caused me to begin to reflect on John 15:12-13. Read it from the New Living Translation before I continue.
NLT John 15:12 I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. 13 And here is how to measure it-- the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.We have all heard this verse thousands of times in hundreds of different settings, some Christian, some secular. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for a friend. If you are like me this verse has probably been preached to you through the lens of Jesus on the cross; that the greatest love for us was shown when Jesus died on the cross for us and for us to do the same is the highest honor we can have bestowed upon us. Christian martyrs reflect this truth across the ages. That makes sense, clearly there is no greater love for us than that of Jesus on the cross or a martyr dying for Christ, but the challenge in that understanding is that Jesus is not talking about himself. He is commanding His disciples about how to live in His physical absence. He is telling them that the way the world will know they are His followers is in the way they love one another. If they all die for each other, and under the Roman emperors there were plenty of opportunities for Christians to die for each other, then who would be left to carry on the message of the Gospel?
It is that reality that struck me as I was reading my unremembered author. What if laying down our life for another has nothing at all to do with dying and in fact has everything to do with living? What if laying down our life for another means shifting the priorities of our life from putting our self first to putting others first? What if instead of buying the new car that I want, I helped a poor family with rent until they could get on their feet? What if instead of insisting we go where I want for dinner, we let our spouse make the choice? What if instead of keeping that extra five dollars to buy a Starbucks coffee on the way to work in the morning, I gave it as an additional tip to the young waitress struggling to keep her family fed? What if I shifted my priority from acquiring stuff to giving as much as I can to others?
I have come to believe that laying down our lives for others is all about how we live! For years I have been closing the service saying something to the affect of "live your lives in a way that makes it easy for others to believe in Jesus." That is what Jesus is talking about here isn't it? We lay down our priorities for others and when people see us do so, they see God begin to work in their lives and then they want to do the same thing. If suddenly the whole world lived from the point of view of always putting other people first, we would suddenly find ourselves living in a society where no one was ever last! That is the Kingdom of God present here on earth!
Can we each lay down our lives for another today in a simple, small way that makes it easy for others to believe in Jesus? As we do so I ask each of you to post a comment to this post and tell us how you laid down your life today as inspiration to the rest of us with new ideas of how we can do the same.
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
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