Who Are You Loving to Jesus?

Isn’t life moving fast? We’re all busy! Family graduations, birthday celebrations, weddings with their accompanying showers, babies and baby showers, house painting and remodeling, vacation planning, gardening, car repairs, washing machine and furnace repairs, jobs…full or part time, laundry, ironing, housecleaning, raising children, doctor appointments, grocery shopping, checkbook balancing, lawn mowing, church responsibilities from music to maintenance and everything in between. All of these things and more fill our lives!

But….who are we loving to Jesus?

In all the hoopla that you call your life, dear child of God, who are you loving to Jesus? Who are you nurturing and loving on, in an effort to share Christ and what His life changing salvation can do for them? Have you ever sat down with a lost relative, friend or neighbor and opened your Bible to share with them, the wonder and hope found in the Word of God?

Before that can ever happen, you must first be their friend. Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” It takes time to be a friend. It takes time to make a friend of someone else. This cannot be a casual thing. It must be a deliberate, compassionate action of your own heart and will. Do you think you have time for such a thing?

I believe the real problem most Christians have in loving others to Jesus, is that we are often too selfish with our own selves and time. Our personal “to-do” lists overwhelm most of us and there is no time left to be concerned for the lost soul of a relative, friend or neighbor. We started a program in our church many years ago called, Each One Reach One. For those of us who were here then, I wonder how many have stuck to reaching ‘that one’? It doesn’t happen overnight. You must be consistent in praying, caring for and being there, for your “each one- reach one”. Has your burden diminished for those who do not know what the Bible says about how to get to Heaven? Have you failed to care that they might want to know?

Present day Christianity has taken on more of a … ‘but what about me’ mentality. Christians are so self-focused. Too many churches are filled with opinionated, pew sitting, stressed out with life in general, critiquing Christians who have never personally won one soul to Christ, and yet they seem to have the answers for everyone, from the preacher on down. Many of us look more like what II Timothy 3:1-5 talks about, than what true Christianity should reflect.

II Timothy 3:1-5 “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

This is strong language for us to hear but this is the Bible speaking to all of us. Too many “Christian congregations” are so filled with their own personal achievements that they have an inflated view of themselves and no clear view of a lost and dying world around them. Many have become high-minded, unthankful and have taken up the task of becoming false accusers of those who are trying to serve the Lord. What has our form of “godliness” done to love someone else to Jesus? When was the last time we baked some cookies or a loaf of bread and took it to our lost friend or neighbor? When was the last time you expressed real love for someone outside of your own church or your own family? When was the last time you put your arm around a lost person in a show of caring compassion for what they were going through? How is the world around us ever going to know what the love of Christ really looks like if they cannot see His reflection in us?

Be a Jesus with skin on! Be His voice over the backyard fence! Be His hand in reaching out with compassion to some hurting soul! Be His reflection in how you care about the concerns of someone other than your own family and your already established friends.

We need to get past our own spiritual blindness and pride, and turn our eyes upon Jesus. Let us see this world, dear LORD…as though we were looking through Your eyes….

Are you willing to set aside some of the busyness of your life to devote time to nurturing a lost friend to Christ? Are you willing to set aside your “issues” of life to devote time to praying for someone that you can reach for the Lord? Are you willing to call your critical spirit the sin that God calls it, so that your focus in life can change? Are you willing to love on someone else beside your own family with the intent of seeing them come to Christ?

Who will you love to Jesus? Will you love someone to Jesus?