In verse 3, Paul commands the church: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." It didn't take long for me to reconsider how well I was doing loving others after this verse. There are plenty of people for whom I would gladly concede that they were better than myself - other believers in the church, pastors, friends, relatives & pretty much the people in my life that I enjoy. It's a quite another thing to consider those you don't necessarily like as better than yourself; those people whose lives show no evidence of a relationship with God, any sort of love for another person or any semblance of caring about the well-being of others. Verse 3 puts no restrictions on who we ought to consider better than us - it didn't just say other Christians or really nice people, it meant everyone. Luke 6:33, "if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same."
So God is calling us to a higher level of love. This isn't easy to do by any means but Paul puts it in context in the verses that follow. He tells us, starting at verse 5, to let our minds be like Jesus Christ who "took the form of a bondservant [and came] in the likeness of men" and "humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death." (v.7-8). Consider that Jesus, who was no stranger to annoying people, hypocrites, backbiters, betrayal, envy, and things of this sort, was able to humble Himself and die for these people. If He can die for these people, the ultimate display of love, surely our response - as we try to be more like Jesus - should be to love the 'unlovable' people in our lives. We should love anyone or anything that God loves. This is a passage from yesterday's sermon that would be good to reflect on:
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:11)
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