What happened this past week?
If you’re like most people you handled the ‘must do’s’ and lamented the ‘left undones.’ Perhaps you fulfilled personal and professional demands with little time for others, at least those outside your intimate and immediate circle. Maybe these last few days were all about you, and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, constant inward focus just might be.
Consider the Apostle Paul’s words to the Christians both in Rome and Philippi.
Romans 15:1-3a, “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. 2 Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification. 3 For even Christ did not please Himself …”
Philippians 2:8, “Being found in appearance as a man, He (Christ) humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Paul’s appeal to both the strong and weak is grounded in Christ’s example. The strong, or spiritually mature, should take the initiative as an obligation based on love, not condescension. Doing good and encouraging our ‘neighbor’ is the goal. After all, the Lord Jesus Christ did not live the self-pleasing life, but the God-pleasing life. In so doing, He built the beautiful and perfect model for Christian living.
Remember, Christians are part of one body in Christ where love binds us to act in all we do with selfless compassion.
Romans 12:5, “so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
Blessings of inconvenient living! Prayer requests?
“Dear Lord, help me live life with others at the forefront – more of them and less of me. Thank you, Amen.”
What about this? Refuse to live the all-about-me life and choose the sacrificing-for-others life instead. Sounds good to me.
Committing to Christ’s ‘Inconvenient’ Call and Modeling My Life on His, PJ
COPYRIGHT ©2014 PJ Gover
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Filed under: Practical Christianity Tagged: Christian living, commitment to inconvenience, Jesus Christ, One Body in Christ, self-denial, selflessness
