Monday, July 11, 2011

loving Jesus

As we sang “My Jesus I love Thee” in worship yesterday, I was moved. We had commissioned the Chongsiriwatana family to serve God in Thailand. Fred had just challenged us to have a serious DTR with God. Obviously, loving Jesus meant sacrifice and service.

Later that afternoon my family was getting on my nerves and I was grumpily doing chores around the house. And then I thought again about what it means to love Jesus. Loving Jesus means serious self-examination, living out of conviction and serving him in faraway countries. But it also means quietly serving my family. It also means asking God for the grace to be kind and patient when I don’t feel like it.

And loving Jesus means loving his Church, loving my church, loving even the individuals in my church who irritate me and disagree with me. It means putting aside complaining. It means doing whatever he shows me to help build up these people and this community that he loves.

We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-21)