Showing Affection
Posted by:
Bible Blogger on
December 21, 2006 at
6:37PM EST
Have you ever truly been in love? The kind of love where you wanted to
be with the other person every minute of every day? The kind of love
where you wanted to give of yourself completely sacrificially without
even a second thought as to your own well-being?
Me neither.
Oh, I thought I had once but I found out over time how obviously that
was not the case. Even today I have people that I love but only two
that I can think of that I love on the level of wanting them around
every second of every day. Those would be my kids.
Look at this passage from Philippians 1:7-8 (NIV):
"7It
is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in
my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the
gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. 8God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus."
The affection of Christ Jesus.
The
way I read that is that's the love of Jesus for someone else. How much
did He love us? He DIED for us. Went to the cross, suffered horrible
agony and then died just to pay the price for our sins.
Do
you have that kind of love for someone else? Again, my thoughts run to
my children and I would die for my children. Anyone else? I can't say
I would put myself in the place to die a horrible agonizing death just
to save someone else's life. Certainly not in the way Jesus paid the
price for us.
Yet here's Paul saying he has that kind of love
for the entire church at Philippi. He proved that love later when he
stood for Christ and was murdered for his beliefs. It challenges me to
look at my love for my fellow believers and to ask if I have that kind
of love.
Of course, I don't. I'm not even close most of the
time. Sometimes I think it's a big accomplishment just to listen on
the phone for an hour when a sister in Christ needs to talk about a
problem...or to drive across town to deliver some bread to a hungry
family...or to carry the equipment off the stage and put in the
church's trailer each Sunday. Yet in the grand scheme of things, this
is a speck of dust compared to the love Jesus showed. It's not much
more of a speck compared to what Paul showed to us as well.
I'm challenging myself to love others more and I'm throwing that challenge to you as well.
