Digging Deeper

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers 1 John 3:16

I think it’s fairly easy to say that we would die for someone.  First of all, if we say it, it’s generally about someone we love: our spouse, our child, our parents.  I’m positive we really believe it too.  Secondly, the odds that we will ever actually be faced with the choice to die in order to save another are pretty slim indeed.

What’s really difficult is to say that we would live for someone.  Even to say it about the same people we’d “take a bullet for” it pretty tough.  To live for others is a choice that’s made every single day.  Usually, it’s nothing quite as heroic as jumping in front of a bullet, nothing that will make the 11:00 news.  Living for others means continually and mindfully  putting their needs, their comfort ahead of our own, with no thought of receiving something in return.  That’s what it means to “lay down our lives for our brothers”.

It’s taking out the trash on a cold morning.

It’s going outside at 2 a.m. to check out a noise.

It’s preparing someone’s favorite dinner that you might not like.

It’s letting someone go ahead of you in line at the grocery store.

Lord, thank you for the perfect example of brotherly love through your son Jesus Christ.  Help me remember it’s the seemingly small things that speak the loudest.

Read: John 15:12-19

Jeanne Roberts