"...If I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing." (1 Cor 13 v 2)

The thoughts behind this post have been in my head for at least the last three weeks, but everytime I've attempted to write it, i could never find the right inspiration, or the right way to convey what i truly wanted to say. I read todays' devotional (from "My Utmost For His Highest", Oswald Chambers - unless indicated otherwise, all quotes come from here) and it just hit home with everything I have been struggling to say. So here goes...

"The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, for Jesus,

not fling it away, not for a cause,

but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people" (MUFHH, 24/02).

If there is one thing I really know God has be teaching me throughout these months few months it is about loving His people. Someone once said to me "We do not have permission to stop loving people" - and with that, we don't even have the right to decide who we love and who we don't. If we chose to follow Jesus, we also choose to "identify ourselves with Jesus Christ's interest in other people (Phil 2:4), and He is interested in every kind of man there is; we have no right...to be guided by our affinites...", especially with regard to who we love....

Meet Kimberley. Kimberely is a girl who also gets the bus I catch to and from work, who over the last month or so has taken to talking/sitting next to me any opportunity she gets! It is a bit weird and sometimes a bit annoying. But then I think about what Christ would have done and how i should follow in his ways, and realise that it really isn't my place to say or even think such thoughts. It also isn't my place to push her away, to ignore her... - it is my place - independant of where she comes from, what her background is, or how loud she is(!) - to simply love her. Whether I like it or not, I have chosen Christ and His ways - and this is a sacrifice.


One of the hardest thing I find in doing my job is loving all the children i "teach" (and even those i don't) all the time, and loving them equally. When a kid is being just horrible and rude and obnoxious and everything else(!) the last thing you think is "how can I love this child?!". Then I read these thoughts -

"If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning...." (21/02)

So everytime a kid is horrible and rude and obnoxious, I should actually be asking myself "how can I love this child more?!". A friend reminded me recently that God never gives us more than we can handle, and so a lot of the time it is not what we can handle, but more rather what we are willing to handle. So each time I feel like giving up and walking away, I need to instead be looking for the way in which i can give a bit more, push a bit more, going beyong the extremes, not just stopping at the safety barrier, and trusting and knowing that God will lead me in doing so.

"So many of us have been conditioned to think of our faith as solely an issue of God and us. But faith is shared experience, a shared journey" (Rob Bell). Right from the beginning of time, God desinged us as sociable beings, to have companionship (Adam and Eve) and fellowship. But "If a man says He must develop a holy life alone with God...he puts himself on a pedestal away from the common run of men"...

So in loving others, and sacrificing ourselves to love people God's way, we also need to consider whether we are treating all people the same. For me at work, it is very easy to love and be nice to the kids that like me, or cooperate, aren't rude and don't kick up too much fuss, but not so much those who do the complete opposite. But I think through the toughness of it all, I am also being taught about humility, not only in serving God and doing what He has asked and placed in front of me, but also in regards to keeping myself on the same level as these people, not placing myself higher or thinking I am better than them, but keeping in that we are all equal, and all loved equally as a result of Jesus' sacrifice.

"Paul spent himself for one purpose, attracted to Jesus all the time, never to himself". Right now, I think my purpose is to learn to and love other people, especially those pupils i come into contact with everyday. Sometimes all that is wanted is a little bit of love, and I have to be prepared and willing to give and show that, putting them and their needs before myself, and ever pushing the boundaries of love.

Be imitators of God...and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God (Eph. 5v1-2)