An Honest Assessment....Are We Loving Each Other Intentionally?

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.  1 John 4:11-12

Do you reach out/call your loved ones, or do you wait for them to contact you?  Do you plan/set aside time for personal one on one discussion, or are you just happy when it happens?  Are you the one who writes to your loved ones “just because,” or perhaps writing just isn’t your thing?  Do you reach out when you are hurting, or do you keep it inside and hope that no one notices?

Self-Assessment

Let’s do an honest self-assessment.  As you read the questions above, where did you fall?  Are you more the person that takes the action, the opposite, or perhaps some of both?  Well read the questions again, thinking specifically of a good friend.  Did that change your responses?  Next, try reading them thinking about your spouse.  Any difference now?  Last one, read each one carefully, this time, thinking about Jesus Christ.  Were your responses different when pondering your interactions with your Savior?  I don’t know about you, but I was surprised at how different my responses were dependent on the person I was thinking about. Very enlightening. But it is a self-assessment, and the purpose of a self-assessment is to grasp truth and to hopefully, ideally, change the trajectory.

Example of Jesus Christ

So let’s take a look at our Lord and Savior in John Ch 11. I love this piece of Scripture, there is so much to learn here. The story I am talking about is the Death of Lazarus.  It is a wonderful story about a friend of Jesus Christ who dies, but Jesus raises from the dead.  It is quite long, and it is a familiar story, so I will hone in on scriptures relevant to today’s topic, loving intentionally and allow you to dive in later at your luxury. 

We jump into our story at John 11:17.  At this point, Jesus has been notified of his friend Lazarus’ passing and has set a plan to go to see Lazarus and his 2 sisters Martha and Mary, who you may remember from my previous blog.  Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus. (5). So, Jesus travels for 2 days to see his friends.  He arrives 4 days after Lazarus’ death.  For the sake of brevity, I am going to pluck just a few lines of scripture out to share what God has shown me after studying these passages with a new lens of loving intentionally.  The section I am focusing on is Luke 11:17-44.

Upon Jesus’ arrival, Martha confronts Jesus about is delay (21).  Jesus consoles her and tells her, ‘Your brother will rise again.” (23) She is comforted by this, and goes to get her sister Mary, who Christ requested to see. (28)  Mary, clearly distraught at the loss of her brother, said to the Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (32)  Christ was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled.” (33)  He even wept. (35)  Others around them could see how much he loved this family. (36)  In the end, Jesus Christ, the resurrected, Lord and Savior, who has given us eternal life, said, “Lazarus, come out!” (43) And he did.  Christ, after 4 days of death, raised Lazarus to be once again among the living.  And that ladies and gentlemen is our LORD!

Learning Points

In looking at my self-assessment, and considering the actions of my LORD in this example and how he loves intentionally; it gives me the desire to adjust and recalibrate some things. Please know that these are learning points, not, “Oh, I got this all figured out points.”  I am still learning, growing, and striving daily, to be a better servant of Christ, and I see this as a great opportunity to do that.  So I am just sharing with you some of the things that I have learned in my study of this passage looking through the lens of loving intentionally.

·       Do Something:  Jesus stopped what he was doing and went to see his friends.  We cannot expect our relationships to change if we stay the same.  It is so easy to get caught up in the negative. Don’t. Just refuse to let yourself go there. Over the years, I have learned that if you have a relationship that you want to improve upon, first it is good to recognize that a relationship is a minimum of a 2 person dynamic.  Dynamic meaning active and changing.  It may not seem that way because we tend to do things the same way.  But, when you change, especially if you can do it consistently, your change will elicit a response in your loved one.  Just be patient.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  1 Cor 13:4-7

·       Do It Sacrificially:  Christ had many responsibilities he could have attended to, but he chose to go to be with his friends.  He walked 2 days to see them.  Let’s be honest, we can get huffy about traveling 30’.  Well, if we are really being honest, is there anything worse than when you just got your drink ready, you get nestled into your favorite spot, and you hear, “Honey, can you come down here?”  And you are like, seriously?  I will not say the rest of what might come out, but you get the point.  But through the lens of loving intentionally, does this scenario look any differently?

·       Do It Uniquely For Them:  Christ made a conscious choice to be there with them during their time of great sorrow and celebrated joy.  He did not need to go to Bethany, he could have spoken the same words from Perea and Lazarus would still have been raised from the dead; yet, Christ chose to go to be with his friends face to face.  I love this.  Christ, our Lord, hugged his loved ones, listened to them, “wept” with them, even offered them peace by telling Martha, that he is “the resurrection and the life….whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (25) Talk about giving someone the comfort they need at just the right time!  So be creative.  Think of your loved ones desires, their interests, their passions.  Remember the things you used to do at the beginning of almost any relationship.  Even your relationship with Christ.  Let’s rekindle that fire. To do that, think of something unique, thoughtful, just for them, something that will make them happy, maybe even “take them back.”  You could perhaps spend time doing something they know that is not your favorite, but you are doing it because you love them.  One that works 100% of the time, but I still am a work in progress on is…..just listen.

·       Do It With Heart:  Christ wept. (35) He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. (33)  It was clear to all that he loved them. (36) What if everyone around us could see without question that we loved those we were with?  When we choose to do something for our loved ones, we should do it from the heart.  One way to help us do that is to prepare our hearts spending time with the Lord. Look at our original questions, J take your time to call on him, set aside personal time for one on one discussion, write to him and share your thoughts.  And if you are hurting in your relationship with your loved one, please go to our Lord and ask him to heal you, mend your heart, prepare/soften the heart of your loved one.  And heal your heart.  He will.  And when your heart is prepared, Go Boldly!  “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  Ps 37:4

 Final Thoughts

I tend to equate love with the things that I do around the house.  And while my spouse appreciates all I do, he just wants to spend time with me.  Ten minutes in the car cruisin’ trumps all else.  Simply taking interest in what he wants to do, whatever it is, even a ten minute ride in a car means more to him than a thousand tasks.  So that is where I have to improve.  I pray the Lord leads each of us to some personal reflection that may perhaps help us to create a stronger bond with our love ones.

The greatest teacher of all is Christ. And simply put, love is key to our Christian faith.  So let’s love intentionally.  We know in our hearts what our loved ones need.  And if we don’t; ask.  I know, life just gets in the way.  But Paul says, “Do not conform to the pattern of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Rom 12:2

What if just for even (1) day, with just (1) loved one, we would choose to love intentionally: to Do Something, Do It Sacrificially, Do It Uniquely For Them, and Do It With Heart.  Do you think it would make an impact?  I do.

So what do you think?  I would love to hear from you if you decide to Go Boldly and love intentionally.  What were your results?  What are your thoughts on this whole idea of loving intentionally?