How does Jesus love? How do we love?

Things learned from God's word and the book by ― Paul E. Miller, Love Walked Among Us: Learning To Love Like Jesus

 Oh, our sin… our lack of love… how often do we look past the person to the problem.  Why is it so hard to take our eyes off a problem/sin, their hurts..and see the person behind the hurt?  This is not so with Jesus. “Jesus looks at people.” Miller explains “Love begins  with looking.” In analyzing the parable of the Good Samaritan, Paul concludes, “The Samaritan sees a person. The priest and the Levite see a problem. They are too distracted, preoccupied, or agenda-driven to identify with him.” It’s true. We look away when the street beggar walks past our car stopped at the traffic light.   Paul Miller explains… “We might have to pay if we look too closely and care too deeply.” So have you ever associated love with looking?

So, does this book give the magic ways to love like Jesus…  “Jesus’ life doesn’t give us a love formula,” Miller writes. “Religion and pop psychology often reduce love to specific behaviors, thus simplifying love so we don’t have to work at it. We like clarity. ‘Just tell me what to do.’ But Jesus deals with people as they are.”  
Here are some of his points in the book:
*“According to Jesus, acknowledging our neediness opens the door to genuine and lasting happiness. Religions usually talk about what a person has to "do", but Jesus talks about what we "can't do". He says that our weakness, not our power or what we bring to God, enables us to know God.”

*When we realize that we don’t have it all together, we can care for people because we no longer feel morally superior to them.  Consequently, we are quicker to help than to give advice, quicker to listen than to lecture.  Observing the tenderness that poured out of the woman, Jesus told Simon, “She loved much”.  But he also observed the coldness of Simon.  “He who has been forgiven little loves little.”  According to Jesus, we all need forgiveness.  Knowing we are inadequate before God and other people leads to compassion, but thinking we are good before God and others make us self-centered and difficult to live with.  The better we THINK we are, the less we can love. The more we see our need, the more we’ll turn for help…and the more we’ll help other because we are able to SEE their need

*“... while our world is reluctant to call something evil, it has also grown cynical about the possibility of unselfish love. The denial of Satan's existence comes out of a mind-set that denies the reality of the spiritual world. But if the world is purely material, then all action is interpreted as self-centered and we have no basis for love. The denial of evil eventually leads to the assumption that there is no love.”

*“Love is not efficient...Look, feel, and then help...We don’t need to figure out what’s wrong with people, that’s God’s job. Our job is to try to understand...The better we think we are, the less we can love...Compassion begins by looking at the other person. Reconciliation begins by looking at yourself.”

 So “what would Jesus do”…with all this info?????  .   Look at his just a few pieces of his  life… Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, emotionally drained and physically tired; he faces the betrayal by his friend, Judas, his arrest by the soldiers.   Peter’s assault on the servant’s ear… and so on….  Jesus performs what Miller calls a “ballet of love—protecting, defending, touching, healing, rebuking—one move rapidly following the other, while those around him are pretending, running, striking, betraying, and murdering.” It is truly a staggering display of love under pressure.

Living the life God designed us to live does not happen without us dying to ourselves. We have to push aside our dreams, our selfish ambitions, our desires, and take on the dreams, ambitions, and desires of Jesus. We cannot follow our own will and follow His will. The word Christian, literally means slave of Christ.   (Remember my posts from the book, NOT A FAN>>)   Are we really his slave bringing about his will?   Are we slaves to our own will living for ourselves acting like Christians where we want or only when it is convenient?

The message of Jesus is best demonstrated when we love; words are necessary but can be very empty..or completely hollow..or even DAMAGING…. Without loving actions accompanying it.

The love of Jesus is not contagious..you can’t catch it like a cold..if it is only taught.  This “love”  will not spread to others if we do not live His life and love out in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our houses, or anywhere we are. If we just want to teach it, it will not spread. We will not see lives changed, our church will not grow, nor will our lives be blessed in the way that God wants to bless us. The love of Jesus  must be experienced to be understood. Since Jesus no longer walks the earth any more, he gives this job to us…to be his hands and feet…  So…it is  up to us to let people  all people…..but EXPECIALLY believers… to  experience His love through us as we let Him lead us by the Holy Spirit.  (Galatians 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.)

  ^{1 Corinthians 13: 1} If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing. ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 John 4 :7-21 God’s Love and Ours   ⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son^[b] into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for^[c] our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ¹³ We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.  God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ¹⁷ In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ 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. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.