Verse of the Day - 2 John 1:6

And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. ~ 2 John 1:6

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I think that we sometimes spend our Christian efforts on the wrong things. We worry and fret alot about "doing the wrong things" -- so we don't drink, smoke or run around lusting. And if we do do those things, we throw a 1-ton brick of guilt on ourselves for being so sinful and bad and terrible. We end up making the Christian life all about me, me, me. I know I must sound heretical in saying these things, but why have we made this life all about me, me, me? John says that Jesus points to them, them, them.

John exhorts us to obey Jesus' command, and His command is to walk in love -- not "don't watch 'R'-rated movies", not "don't listen to Top-10 radio", not "don't have a glass of wine with dinner", not "don't smoke". I realize that we are called to be set apart from the world -- please don't get me wrong. It's just that we have our Christian focus on internal purity sometimes to the exclusion of transformational love poured out on humanity.

That's what Jesus did. He poured His love out on humanity. And He calls us to do the same.

I ask you to check yourself. Are you spending all your spiritual energy keeping yourself from the tainting of the world and creating a spiritual bubble for yourself? Can we take our eyes off of what we're not supposed to be doing and starting focusing on what we are supposed to be doing?

Because loving other people requires that we love God and are connected to Him, I believe that when we put His priorities as our priorities, godly living will follow as a natural outpouring of that abandonment to God and His love. But when we spend all our time with our "don't" lists, trying to make sure that we are keeping clean, but not obeying His command to walk in love, what have we gained but a self-absorbed life with little-to-know impact for God's kingdom?

If you want to lose weight, is it better to focus on the "don't" list of food, or the "do" list of food?

I say, let's stop worrying about me, me, me and our list of things to avoid and bad habits to correct and, instead, take Jesus' command to walk in love as our only "do" list. I believe the "don'ts" will get lost in the mix of love as God resets our priorities and desires.

Love,
Joelene