Act in Love
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” -Philippians 2:3-4
Everything we do should be governed by love: love for others and ultimately our love for Christ. It is easy to get caught up in ourselves but when we stop to look outward with love we are able to display Christ to those around us. Exemplifying Christ is a product of the process of sanctification. Sanctification is simply becoming more like Jesus. Love languages have become such a part of our generation we have been taught we can classify love into one of five categories: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service and gifts. While these are all great ways to express our love for others it is important to understand the universal love language. Do you want to know what the universal love language is? God- God is love (John 4:8). He invented love. He showed love in the greatest way imaginable by sending His only Son to die on the cross for you and for me so that we might be saved (John 3:16). The gospel is the greatest picture of love on the grandest scale imaginable, because of the sacrifice in giving of His life an act of love had more significance than if Jesus had just said “you are forgiven”. The fact that He endured unimaginable pain and death and through that sacrifice took on our sin He has the right to say “You are forgiven” the love behind those words is so much more evident, because Jesus was selfless and gave Himself out of love. Everyone can recognize love through selfless acts because it shows that your love is so great that you are willing to give up your comfort, your opinions, and your preferences, just to love.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” -John 15:12-13
With Jesus as our example of perfect selfless love, we can now start to walk in His footsteps by consciously choosing to love others and serve them selflessly, so that ultimately they can see the love of Jesus through us. The whole reason we are on the earth is to proclaim the gospel and testify to God’s love and grace and one way we can do this is by having our actions governed by love.