Simple but hard

My husband and I watched a movie recently that really made an impact on me. One thing that stood out is a quote from the movie. "Following God is simple, God loves you completely and so you must love others. God sacrificed for you so you must sacrifice everything". Loving others seems easy enough but sacrificing everything is where we often trip up. We are so fleshly selfish that it goes against our very basic flesh to sacrifice for others. If you do not think you are a selfish in the flesh, take a moment to think about one day in your life and think about all the thoughts you have and all the things you do geared towards getting what you want.

Many of us live in a "me" world, and it is not necessarily stepping on others to get what we want, it is just that we want what we want, our desires, dreams etc. That is the me world we live in. We often say, what is wrong with me working hard to get what I want? The immediate answer by the world's standard would be, nothing. However, this life is not our own, our purpose is not to fulfill all our desires. It is to serve our heavenly father in whatever he calls us to. I know this is a hard thing in our day when we have turned God into a slot machine.  By loving, we do not live for ourselves but others, when we truly love others as Christ loves the church, our love becomes sacrificial. We know the "love verse" (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) by rote but we do not really live it. It is not just a verse for our partners, it is a verse for all people.  We cannot live it out, in and of our selves, but as we allow Christ to live through us it becomes a reality. He is truly the vine and we the branches, apart from him, we cannot live.

So can I truly love others in a sacrificial way? Yes by dying daily to the self. The beautiful thing is that God's grace is ever so sufficient. Oh how he loves us! I am so glad that when he died on that fateful day, my past, present and future were before him. He saw it all and still chose to die in my place, what a mighty and loving God we serve! He is eternally good and he love me this much, how can I then stumble in this life? I cannot for he is eternally with me. Psalm 139, 1-18.