To Love Like Jesus Loved
Ruth Ann Stites, Staff Writer
When Jesus came to earth He did so for everyone in the world. We are all familiar with this great truth from the third chapter of John. I referred to this passage last week but let me repeat it and examine it from a different perspective:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (John 3:16-21)
The question implied in these verses was what each person will do with Jesus’s invitation, not who received it. Paul put it this way, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Rom. 1:16-17).
I wanted to follow the idea that it is not who a person is but what they believe one step further in trying to understand better how we are to love like Jesus does as disciples who take up their cross and follow Him. Several years ago I worked through my definition of what the cross we are to take up is (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34). I concluded that, at its heart, our cross is simply agape, God’s love. In a fundamental sense it makes no difference who we aid in our cross carrying, but what matters is our purpose in what we do. It’s all about loving because we are acting like Jesus no matter who receives our actions or the exact nature of them. Again, the Apostle Paul was right on target when he said that doing anything without love gains us nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
Yes, being a Cross Disciple will bring you many challenges, some hardships, and even a share of suffering, but, while experienced through people, our crosses are not people but LOVING people, the people our Lord directs us to aid, assist, and advise. We need not separate people and the circumstances surrounding us from our crosses, only recognize how each of these relates back to our purpose in cross carrying…to love like Jesus loved.
(Photo credit: R. A. Stites, wildflowers, Benton County, Arkansas)
