Love Like Jesus

Love Like Jesus

1/16/20

One of the more arguable phrases of today is that we love like Jesus did or “what would Jesus do”.  Both of these represent good thoughts for us to ponder but do we really understand their meaning according to how Jesus lived His life or are they just catchphrases to deflect the truth about what we are saying and doing?  God meant for our lives to be lived in such a peaceful and holy manner but because of our sinful ways, it is difficult for us to act in such a manner.  God has provided us a perfect example of how we need to be through His Son but in all honesty, hardly any of us live up to that standard and the number of people trying to live up to this standard fades daily.  The only way that our societies are going to survive and then thrive again is for us to return back to God and to live under the blood of His Son, no other way can achieve this Life.  This means we must act according to what Jesus did and the example He set before us including our actions during times of stress and temptation.

Once again this small community is facing another suicidal death of a young person.  For so many over the past decades or so has been difficult to cope with so much needless and senseless deaths of the youth in this area.  I am not excluding any area around the world from this category either for every corner of the world we read daily where others have taken their lives way before their end was to come.  This article shall not be making any excuses for these acts of denial for God wants us to understand that this is a serious issue that HE sees every day and how it grieves His heart to know that a prized creation of His has selfishly taken their own lives and has ignored the love of Jesus.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 1 person dies every forty seconds from suicide and according to God that is 1 person every forty seconds too much.  It is horrible that another family has to face the loss of a child due to this terrible human action and shorten a life that had a divine purpose and a goal that only they could achieve.  Death is never a goal of God it never has been, it is not now, and it shall never be either so why do we allow our enemy to embrace this role and convince our children to complete such hideous acts against themselves?

God understands that it is difficult for a family, group, school, city, county, nation to talk about such tragedies, but this cyclic pattern seems to be arriving closer together without a long period or break in between.  If we do not talk about its lasting effects on families and communities this pattern shall continue to grow and these events shall become an almost daily or even daily occurrence.  This community has already been witness to a group suicide pact, not being fully fulfilled but never-the-less made.  This community is not singled out for any increased activity when it comes to suicide, for it is the job of our enemy to limit and to kill steal and destroy what God has ordained to be life.  Our concepts of how life should be, have drastically changed over the past few decades as well and with this increase comes along with it the reciprocal increase amount of effort we have placed on taking God out of our lives.  It is a popular belief for us to hold onto when we say love like Christ when we are defending a manner or aspect of our lives that others do not agree with, but is this the true aspect and way we should be speaking about Jesus and His love for us?  Let us dive into a subject about Jesus that is well known but might not be well understood and that is His temptation and His prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.

Matthew 4:1-11

“Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.”

Luke 22:44

“And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

However, we cannot forget that Christ took on heavy and hard issues with the authority that God gave Him to do.  When these situations arose Jesus never backed down or changed what His purpose was either, He always completed the task at hand and did not look back after it was completed.  Jesus never wavered from this process either, He understood that He had a mission while He was on the earth and He also understood that He had only a limited amount of time to complete it.  Do you realize that if Jesus would have altered this plan of His Father’s in any way that our lives and existence would be in total condemnation on levels that we could never imagine?  Do you realize that there were two direct times during Jesus’ life here on earth He could have changed the course of God’s plan yet kept Himself intact?  Do you understand what this process would have been called if Jesus would have done such things to alter His mission?  It is called suicide!  Think about this, folks, God NEVER created anyone of us to end our lives prematurely at our own hand, never!  Death has no part in the eyes of God which is the exact reason He provided us a way to be restored so we may have the opportunity to live with Him for eternity.

In the first example, we have about Jesus having the opportunity to commit suicide is when He was led into the wilderness by Satan and was tempted to change what was to become of His life.  Jesus understood from a very early age what He was supposed to be doing while He was on earth, so much so that He frightened His earthly parents to death when He was a young lad another sign He had a destiny to fulfill.  Satan offered Jesus anything He wanted even said He could throw Himself down off a mountain and the angels would come to save Him, gross negligence of His Divine purpose.  Each time Satan suggested a deviant act Jesus would retaliate with Scripture, a teaching lesson that all of us should follow; see, Jesus lived Scripture just as we should live the Word of God, another example of how our lives have a purpose for our existence and an eternal direction no matter what the details may say.  The world and its leader shall always tell you to end your life and take the easy way out, but what he will not tell you is that as soon as you do your life will end through temptation of God and there is a clear command here that says do not do that.

The second example we have concerning love like Jesus title of this article comes from the night that Jesus was betrayed.  While He and three of His disciples were in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus began to pray and to ask His Father if it was time for His purpose to be fulfilled or if He would wait a bit longer.  How hard was this decision of Jesus’?  So much so that He began to sweat blood while He was preparing for His next step in the Sacrificial process.  With Jesus knowing His time was short, He did not just give up and allow His life to end, the stress He was under literally caused Him to sweat blood folks.  There have been a few documented times in human history that this phenomenon has occurred again and in each case, the stress of the human at that moment was so intense that major health issues occurred afterward with one or two not living.  Add the fact that Jesus was perfect in every way imaginable and about to die for the sins of the world, yes He could have called angels down to minister to Him at this time and would have royally been justified to do so.  But if He had, His life would have ended in eternal suicide for all of us through a selfish act of His because He wanted out of the situation according to the easy way.

You might suggest that these two examples of Jesus’ life are extreme and really cannot be compared to the individual issues that we face each day.  Why I will ask in return?  Were you not created for a specific purpose for God and His Kingdom?  Was Jesus?  It does not matter who is who in this area of life.  Yes, Jesus was Holy and pure on all levels, but we were created in such a manner as well.  We all have a purpose in our presence on this earth and it is our responsibility to complete as God designed it to be.  Dying for any type of selfish reason is NOT God’s plan for your life and your life should NEVER be referred to as a monument to/for death.  The only thing that occurs when you end your life is that you cut short the purpose of why you walked this earth, your destiny for what you were to complete shall never occur.  Plus, you leave a legacy of constant want and questions of pain and agony from those who loved you.  Can you imagine what a hay day Satan would have had if Jesus caved in at the wilderness or called angels to secure Him on the night of His betrayal?  It is the exact same happiness that Satan has when you choose and then execute the end of your life.

When we lose sight of the preciousness of life we place ourselves into a dangerous category that puts a huge eternal bulls-eye on our spirit.  It is this bulls-eye Satan uses to manipulate our decisions thus acquired situations to place such a terminal thought into our hearts and heads.  Once this legal groundwork is established it can be cultivated into an acceptable array of choices that eventually seem normal and natural.  As each day passes that this groundwork is not taken care of correctly, it becomes a growing issue that may or may not be physically noticed which explains why some suicides are thoughtfully planned and others are spontaneous.  When we place our problems into a physical aspect, we automatically lose fact of what really is transpiring around us.  Satan already has our physical life and for this, we should know that it does not matter what our bodies penetrate because they are going to die anyway.  However, when we allow our focus to become physical and allow it to continue n such a manner, our spiritual will soon follow suit to the backseat thus realigning our entire existence with the world and not God.

In truth, when we allow such sick and diseased order to grow inside our hearts, we have already begun the process of our suicide.  Remember, anything that goes against life is sin and when we voluntarily allow sin to reside within our hearts, death can only follow at an unnatural pace; thus, suicide.  Over and over the Scriptures tell us that our fight is not according to the physical but through the spiritual because One Kingdom wants you to live forever and the other kingdom wants you to die eternally.  Isn’t there another Scripture that clearly states that lovers of death shall have no place in Heaven?  Then why entertain death in a physical or emotional setting then?  You realize that if Jesus did call angels down to save Him then our suicide would be justified in God’s eyes?  This belief in the previous sentence is a grotesque and utter lie that Satan loves to weave into our hearts about God.  Jesus did not commit this damning act thus setting the example of how we should love like Jesus for Jesus was sent to this world by His Father to present an eternal example of what love is and what it means to do what Jesus would do.  Even one of the twelve disciples of Jesus committed suicide because he believed that he was beyond redemption and should no longer be a part of life.  Satan wants you to be nothing more than Judas and to complete your life in the same manner.  God loves life and provides it abundantly and it is everyone’s purpose in life to express this eternal love as Jesus did.

How do we fare with this truth and exposure of Christ during our everyday lives?  Are we serving Christ as a true and eternal ambassador for Christ which gives us the perfect example that all those who call themselves Christians should be or are we succumbing to the temptations and pressures of the world and doing our best to fight with the world?  This is a serious issue that we need to take hard looks at and pray about because if we do not live as true eternal examples of what Jesus did for us how can we honestly say that we love like Jesus?  From the looks of things in the Church world, our hearts are a dark black color and need The Light to shine on them once again.  As each day passes, I hear more and more compromise coming from the heart of the Church and we are proclaiming these actions as a truth about Jesus and how He wants everyone to feel comfortable about their existence.  If Jesus wanted an easy life for His people He would have never had to be tempted, sweat blood or die for our sins.

Jesus cared so much for you and me that He was willing to lose His status in Heaven, come to this evil world, and then die for our ugliness and darkness that we live within.  This is a no-compromise stance where the "loves like Jesus" campaign that we say we have versus what we actually live by and promote.  Jesus never wavered in His mission and His Ways and neither should you when challenged.  It is time we change our heart’s behavior pattern Church and once again become serious in our efforts to reach the lost and to live as examples of Christ.  Times shall continue to become worse and tense and if our hearts are not in sync with God and His Word we will not stand when times really get tight and tough; we shall not know how to stand and to live.  Repentance is not an angry, ugly or hateful process it is a restoration process that separates us from the world and it shall not be easy, but it is necessary in order to live for eternity with God.  It is this Truth of Christ and His examples that we need to have to appear in our daily lives to consider ourselves to love like Jesus.

Church, if we are not providing a strong stance against the policies of the world then we are condoning them, there is no in-between in this or any area where eternity is concerned.  When it was mentioned above that things shall become tougher, harder, and tighter it was meant for everyone, not just the Church.  We cannot forget that there are countless amounts of people on this earth that have no idea that there is a true and holy response to the death threats that the world sends to us every day.  We are in direct dereliction of duty when we do not continually express (stand on each corner of their hearts) and show them the Truth about their purpose.  It is our responsibility to talk to those kids involved in church and to those kids who are not involved in church just the same.  God loves each one of them and they need to know that Jesus stood up for them and sacrificed His life so that we would not have to.  This is the True message of repentance and eternity and we as the Church are responsible to teach as such!  These two examples of Jesus represent 100% commitment to life and to the full gestation of the phrase and belief that we love like Jesus.

There is nothing more disheartening in humanity for parents to lose a child or any other family member to suicide, we can tolerate deaths to natural causes or even horrific accidents.  God is not here to argue life and death at this time; He wants to prevent death from arriving as long as possible for it is life that is given freely through Him.  In the first passage of Scripture here we see a very important issue and topic about temptation and what its content says about tempting God.  We should never tempt God into doing anything and taking of one’s life is the prime example of this temptation.  Church, reach out to those who have lost a child or family member to such devastation, it does not matter if they know Christ or not, EVERYONE needs to hear this message.  I really hurt for the families that have suffered and continue to suffer from such tragedies, not only in this area of Colorado but around the world.  God is the only salvation into eternity through the blood of His Son.  This is our challenge now Church, reach out and become available 24/7 to those who need talking with, praying with, teaching with, and healing with.  Let’s change this area’s suicide rate the only perfect way possible, by showing others how to love like Jesus.

DLB