Colorado Springs, Colorado
The sad reality of our lives is that we are so desperate for people to love us that we don't take time to know the people we want to accept us. Though they sit next to us in worship, share our meals and dwell under our roofs we don't know people. We grapple with our desire to be known rather than to know, to be heard rather than to listen, to be loved rather than love.
As we conclude this first week of blogs centering on love, we come face-to-face with the reality of our self-centeredness. How can we truly love our sister or brother, and even our enemy, if all we're concerned about is being loved?
"And he has give us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters." 1 John 4:21 New Living Translation
It is quite possible that the Apostle John was confronting a person who said you didn't need to love others to know Christ. If you've been paying attention to the source of the Bible passages over the last week you have noted that many of them came from John's first letter.
Yet the idea of knowing the love of Christ and not concerning ourselves with the life of another flies in the face of the Gospel message itself. The cross is evidence of how well we are known to God. The cross reveals how well God understood our sin and to what extent God would step into our brokenness and work healing.
If we love God for what he has done for us then this love is seen in our willingness to know each other and to love each other.
Lord Jesus, bring us to the cross that we might bear the cross and be willing to love even when we hunger to be loved. Amen.
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You can listen to the Praying With the Eyes broadcast at the ib network on Sundays at 8:00 am, 11:30 am, 1:00 pm and 8:30 pm MST (www.ibnetwork.us). You can also listen to the show on the ib network on Tunin Radio.
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Text and Photographs ©Copyright 2012-2014 Douglas P. Brauner. ARR.
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