what followers do

This weekend was week 3 of our summer message series, Follow, which is all about Jesus’s invitation to follow him. One step we are all called to take in following Jesus is to love others and not to judge others. But Jesus didn’t just ask his followers to be loving, he commanded them to “love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) Loving others as Jesus loves us means putting our love into action in an extraordinary way. It means loving those who are tough to love, regardless of whether or not we feel they are worthy of our love. It means loving others in a way that is self-giving. It means acting toward others first with love. Loving others and not judging others is a simple concept, but it’s not easy to put into practice. One of the traps we can fall into in our journey of faith is that we can begin to confuse discipline with discipleship (following Jesus). We can begin to think that all that matters is my disciplines--I go to church, I pray, I follow the rules. We might even fall into a pattern of thinking that says: all that matters is that I’m “good with God.” Disciplines are great and helpful, but they need to be in the context of discipleship. Because Jesus said that as followers of his we are to be marked not by our disciplines but by our radical love for one another.

Is there a situation or relationship in your life where you are judging someone for doing something wrong, breaking the rules, or acting unfairly? What would it look like for you to treat that person first of all with love?