Can you imagine what it would have been like to be God when sin entered the universe? Can you imagine seeing your most beloved creation, your children, becoming infected with the deadliest disease the world has ever known? Can you imagine that the very thing you loved the most didn’t choose you, but chose a lesser alternative? Can you imagine? Because I can’t.
In the midst of looking down from Heaven and seeing the brokenness, the error, the fault, the bad decisions, the injustice, the pain, and the judgment, God chose not to condemn the world and His most beloved creation; He chose to love. He said, “They just need to be loved. They just need to know that I forgive them. They just need to know that I still love them. Let me go love them.” (John 3:16) God sent His perfect Son to be the image and demonstration of His great love for us. Jesus changed everything and continues to change everything.
As Jesus followers, our aim should be to live, to look, and to love like Jesus. The question that we all have to answer is this: “How do we live, look, and love like Jesus?” I believe it starts with two fundamental parts of lives… our perspective and our posture towards the rest of humanity.
Perspective is the way that we choose to see life, situations, circumstances, and even people. Perspective is the lens that we choose to see life through. Our perspective towards others is crucial and is something we should evaluate if we are trying to live, look, and love like Jesus. When you look at people, when you look at God’s most beloved creation, where does your mind go? Does it go to a place a condemnation? Does it go to a place of judgment? Does it go to a place full of pride, bitterness, jealousy, or anger? Does it go to a place of ridicule? Because if your mind goes to any of these places, if any of these places act as your perspective towards others, you need a new perspective. We as Jesus followers have to have the same perspective as God: They just need to be loved. Let me go love them.
The second thing we have to evaluate when it comes to living, looking, and loving like Jesus is our posture.I’m not talking about the way that we sit at the dinner table, or the way that we walk. I’m talking about the very way we carry ourselves in relativity to the rest of humanity. Our posture, in this sense, is our willingness to act on meeting the needs of others. What’s your posture towards others? What’s your posture towards the people that don’t believe what you believe? What’s your posture towards the people that are hurting and broken in your community? I believe the Church and Christians for the most part have the right perspective towards others BUT have the wrong posture… Far too often we as the Church or as Jesus followers say, “They are so lost, I hope God puts somebody in their life to help them.” My question for you is this, “What if you are the one that God has put in their life to help [them]?” We as Jesus followers have to have the right posture. We have to have the posture that God had when He looked down on the world: They just need to be loved. Let me go love them.
My prayer and my hope for you today is that you would choose to adopt the same perspective & posture of Jesus, and live a “Let me go love them” kind of life wherever you are… In Jesus name.