"Let
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away
from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another,
tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has
forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children; and
walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us,
an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma."
To imitate God--to follow in His footsteps--is to walk in love, a love as sacrificial, as gracious and merciful, as the love He freely and undeservedly gave us on the cross. It requires through the empowering of the Holy Spirit a suppression of one attitude and the embracing of another. What I must suppress is the natural tendency to react in self-defense, to think that my feelings and my agenda are the ones that matter, to believe that how people react and treat me are paramount. Self-love is all that is--idolatry. No matter how people treat me, I am commanded to put away the resentment that always leads to bitterness. I am to die to myself and put away the wrath and anger and temper that always comes from the selfishness of self-defense. I must put away the clamor that comes from the self-assertiveness that shouts out "I am the one that matters here, not you. What I want will control the agenda of what happens in my life. And if I have to, I will slander you. I will make up lies to mock you and to destroy your agenda. Yes, I will act in a premeditated, malicious manner to hurt you if you have done anything that gets in the way of my happiness and my comfort and my self-aggrandizement."
Instead when I am hurt, mistreated, disrespected, lied about--maliciously, I must embrace the attitude that demonstrates the walk of love. I must respond with kindness, with a tender heart, with a forgiveness as full of grace and mercy and self-denial as the love displayed on the cross of Calvary for me. The grace of the cross is to be the standard by which I live my life in interactions with others. "Father, forgive them." It is that love, evidenced by the willing pouring out of myself for others, the spontaneous responding as a servant to the needs of others, the daily commitment to continue to do so until He takes me Home; it is that denial of myself that is a sweet smelling fragrant sacrifice of worship to my God and Savior.
How is that possible? I must daily bow my knees before the Father and plead with Him to make known to me--to teach me to fully comprehend--"the breadth and length and height and depth" of the love of Christ for me--the love that surpasses human knowledge.
I can only love others as deeply as I understand the unfathomable, immeasurable demonstration of His love for me freely given on Calvary in my behalf. I can only love Him as deeply as I love others.
To imitate God--to follow in His footsteps--is to walk in love, a love as sacrificial, as gracious and merciful, as the love He freely and undeservedly gave us on the cross. It requires through the empowering of the Holy Spirit a suppression of one attitude and the embracing of another. What I must suppress is the natural tendency to react in self-defense, to think that my feelings and my agenda are the ones that matter, to believe that how people react and treat me are paramount. Self-love is all that is--idolatry. No matter how people treat me, I am commanded to put away the resentment that always leads to bitterness. I am to die to myself and put away the wrath and anger and temper that always comes from the selfishness of self-defense. I must put away the clamor that comes from the self-assertiveness that shouts out "I am the one that matters here, not you. What I want will control the agenda of what happens in my life. And if I have to, I will slander you. I will make up lies to mock you and to destroy your agenda. Yes, I will act in a premeditated, malicious manner to hurt you if you have done anything that gets in the way of my happiness and my comfort and my self-aggrandizement."
Instead when I am hurt, mistreated, disrespected, lied about--maliciously, I must embrace the attitude that demonstrates the walk of love. I must respond with kindness, with a tender heart, with a forgiveness as full of grace and mercy and self-denial as the love displayed on the cross of Calvary for me. The grace of the cross is to be the standard by which I live my life in interactions with others. "Father, forgive them." It is that love, evidenced by the willing pouring out of myself for others, the spontaneous responding as a servant to the needs of others, the daily commitment to continue to do so until He takes me Home; it is that denial of myself that is a sweet smelling fragrant sacrifice of worship to my God and Savior.
How is that possible? I must daily bow my knees before the Father and plead with Him to make known to me--to teach me to fully comprehend--"the breadth and length and height and depth" of the love of Christ for me--the love that surpasses human knowledge.
I can only love others as deeply as I understand the unfathomable, immeasurable demonstration of His love for me freely given on Calvary in my behalf. I can only love Him as deeply as I love others.
No comments:
Post a Comment