1 John 3:16(CEB)
16 This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
Reflection
There isn’t much difference in the spelling of selfish and selfless. But what a difference those few letters make.
Would you rather work with a selfish person or a selfless person?
Would you rather be friends with a selfish person or a selfless person?
Would you rather marry a selfish person or a selfless person?
The answer is obvious. I was fortunate enough to marry a selfless woman in 1975. It’s obvious in the way she is with me. It’s obvious in the way she is with my children. It’s obvious in the way she is with others.
Okay, then what type of a husband should I to be? Once again, the answer is obvious. But knowing and doing can also be as far apart as being selfish and being selfless. Imagine a world of selfless people. That’s the type of world God intended. That’s the type people Christians should be.
How can that happen?
A.B. Simpson gave the answer, the only real answer, in a book he wrote in 1890.
“The love of Jesus is the divinely appointed prescription for the death of self,” wrote Simpson in “A Larger Christian Life.”
Folks love to quote John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Not as many are apt to quote or even know 1 John 3:16.
In that verse John tells us what God expects of those with eternal life.
“By this we know love, that He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters,” wrote John.
We can’t have true love and selfishness.
True love is selflessness.
Selflessness is the acid test for true Christians.
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
And the only way to die to self is the love of Christ.
Simpson wrote, “What has cast out that idol, self, from its throne? Nothing but love. That is the simple story of the death of self in the Christian life. It is the love of Jesus that has excluded it, and never, until we become fascinated with His affection, and won in complete captivity to His love, shall we cease to live unto ourselves.”
The answer is simple. Unfortunately, implementing it, for most of us, takes time. A whole lot of time.
by Rick Reed
For Pondering and Prayer
Jesus shows us what true love is. We will never love like Jesus but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to love like Jesus.
Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to understand the love of Christ and help me to love that way as much as I can. Help me to be a selfless lover. Amen.
