SHOW ME JESUS

 

            If I had to identify what humanity needs more than anything else in this life, I would have to say our greatest need is love. Real love. Not the manufactured, conditional type of love or even the romantic type of love, but the love of God. The love that emanates from the One Who, even while we were sinners and rebelling against Him, loved us anyway and made a way for us to be reinstated to fellowship with Him. And no one is left out except by their own choice.

I believe love to be the most needed element of life because God is love, and we cannot experience true life, life in the kingdom of God, without Him. All we have to look forward to is eternal death and punishment without the love of God.

            Love has been defined as “affectionate concern for the well-being of others.” We cannot love a stranger for their actions, their disposition, their temperament, personality, or nature. That would be impossible because they are strangers to us. We don’t have any knowledge of their attributes or characteristics. Yet we can still be concerned for their well-being, both spiritual and physical.

            My husband and I receive numerous pleas by mail asking us to help people all over the world. You probably get them, too. They are pleas to help people that we have never met. But we are moved by the need. And the love of Christ within us compels us to do what we can to help. We can’t help everyone. We cannot answer every request. That would be impossible, but we can help some. That is part of loving our neighbor. We can show them Jesus by the Spirit of God in action through us.

Many of you probably get a lot of prayer requests on social media. We do, too. Some of the people we don’t know personally. But we can still reach out in prayer on their behalf because we care about their difficulties. We have compassion and a concern for the well-being of others.

I opened the mail one day while my grandson was with me. We saw a picture of a young boy who was bent in a terrible position, making it impossible for him to stand and walk. My grandson’s heart was immediately touched. He wanted to help. Feeling sorry for the boy was not enough. Something needed to be done to change his situation.

That is how God’s love works. It is a love of compassion that compels us to do something, to act. While I was in the process of writing this article, my grandson came over wearing a shirt that said, “Love Out Loud”. That is what true love does. It makes itself known in compassionate ways. We can look back to the “Good Samaritan” and see love in action. He loved out loud. Allow me to give you my paraphrase of this story. A man who had been beaten and robbed lay by the roadside, left for dead. Two members of the Jewish ‘clergy’ saw him and passed him by. They couldn’t be late for ‘church’. Later a Samaritan, who was hated by the Jews, came along and saw this man who needed help. We are told he had compassion on the man. So, he stopped and helped him. Then he took the man to an inn and paid for him to be taken care of until he got back from his business.

Too often we forget that love is an action word. If love is never seen in action, if we don’t love out loud, it is no more than a feeling within a person that only they know anything about. The religious leaders may have felt sorry for the beaten man, but they did not have compassion. They were not concerned for his well-being.

Romans 5:7-8 tells us, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Again we can read How God’s love took action in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is the love of God. It is the love that we have received. It is the love we are to give to others so they, too, can see Jesus, and they can only see Him through those who allow His love to flow through them. We can love people by extending charity and benevolence to them. Will we?

Imagine living in a place where you cannot support yourself or your family. Then someone comes to you and tells you there are people on the other side of the world who have sent money, food, clean water, or instruments so you can begin to farm and take care of your family again. When these are given in Jesus’ name, we show them Jesus in His compassion and love.

Even greater than relieving the physical maladies and deprivation of others is relieving their spiritual maladies and deprivation. Every person needs to hear about Jesus Christ. Every person needs the opportunity to know Him. Jesus said that is up to you and me – those of us who know Him. Yet so many are preoccupied with the things of this world. Not necessarily evil things, but things that take the place of God in our hearts. The Apostle John says those things are idols. Anything that gets in the way of our serving Jesus Christ and sharing the gospel with others on a regular basis is an idol.

With all the social media and other electronic devices we have now there are so many opportunities to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. How are we using them? What is important to us? What are our priorities? Are we majoring on ourselves and our positions in this world? Or is our focus on Jesus and living in the kingdom of God here and now?

People need to know about Jesus. They need to understand that they can be free from the bondage of sin and live freely in the kingdom of God even while they are still in this world.

The Apostle Paul endured years of persecution so he could take the gospel message to as many places and people as he could. His whole Christian life was spent spreading the gospel. He traveled. He wrote. He preached. He used up every bit of himself for the glory of God’s kingdom and the salvation of souls. As God’s children, we have received the same call.

Matthew 28:18-20 says, “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”

Every person is not called to ‘go’ in the same way or the same place. But if we name the name of Christ, we are called to make disciples. It may be one-on-one. It may be preaching. It may be writing. It may be going to another country. It may be ministering to those around us. But we are all called.

            We are not called to do our own business, but to do God’s business. And when we step out to do God’s business, we are not alone. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you... He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

We show God that we love Him by following His commandments. And He will baptize us with the Holy Spirit to enable us to love others as He loves us.

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Again, Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” Laying down our lives for others doesn’t always mean dying. It may mean putting self aside to show this world Jesus in action through us. We show our love for others by showing compassion and meeting their physical and spiritual needs in the name of Jesus Christ.

If we don’t see the result of someone’s love, we don’t know it exists. God understands that. So He proved His unfailing love for us. God’s love has no limits. It reaches to everyone and it never ends. The power of His love causes us to feel the wind of His Spirit blowing and to experience the transformation He works in us. The fact of God’s love is undeniable, because the proof of God’s love can be seen in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and it can be felt in our hearts when we open them to Him.

God loves out loud!

So loud that it echoes throughout time and space!