The Blessing of Trials
We will either be shaped by God’s Word or by the world around us. If we follow Christ and are shaped by His Word, we’ll find ourselves in conflict with the world. It’s simply what we must always expect. Practically speaking, this implies relations, friends, neighbors, and colleagues will sometimes not understand or take offense once we prioritize Jesus’s commands. Rather than seeing this resistance as an occasion for enmity, we should embrace it as a possibility to function witnesses for Christ and His way. This is a component of what James is talking about when he invites us to count our various trials as joy:
“Count all of it joy, my brothers,[a] once you meet trials of assorted kinds, for you recognize that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you might be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
We’re all accustomed to the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to to be treated. Jesus mentions this maxim several times throughout the Gospels (e.g., Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31), and when asked what the best commandment within the Law was, He answered that your entire Law and Prophets (the Old Testament) held on the commands to like God and to like others (Matthew 22:36–40).
The two biggest commandments within the Old Testament must do with relationships—our relationship to God and our relationship to others. The Christian rendering of the Golden Rule will likely be in the shape of loving your neighbor as yourself, as expressed in Matthew 22. Nonetheless, most individuals agree with the Golden Rule, Christians and non-Christians alike, and even teach it to their children.
But Jesus has a way of shocking people. He calls His disciples to like another way. He gives them a recent rule.
A New Command, a New Kind of Love
Jesus tells His disciples in John 13:34:
“A recent commandment I give to you, that you just love each other, whilst I even have loved you, that you furthermore may love each other.”
Jesus calls this a recent commandment, nevertheless it sounds quite a bit just like the old commandment! So how is it different? The old commandment was to “love your neighbor as yourself.” This recent command is a better command: love people in the way in which that Jesus loved us.
How did Jesus love us? He gave Himself up for us. As Paul writes in Romans:
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8
John, echoing this concept, writes:
“In that 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 should love each other.” – 1 John 4:10–11
God demonstrated His love for us through concrete motion by giving up His Son. Love gives. Love takes motion.
Elsewhere, Jesus says there is no such thing as a greater love than this, to put down one’s life for his friends (John 15:13). This is a radical form of love. There is nothing selfish about it. It is a sacrificial form of love that sees others’ well-being and interests as greater than our own. It is a love of sacrifice and of service.
How to Love as Jesus Loves
How can we love as Jesus loved us? Just prior to giving the brand new command, Jesus gives us a picture of what it looks wish to love others as He loves. He washes His disciples’ feet. Why is that an enormous deal? You might wonder.
In biblical times, people wore sandals in all places, and so they didn’t have paved roads and sidewalks in all places like we do. People’s feet would develop into dirty and wish washing. It was customary for a number to supply a servant to his guests to clean their feet. It would have been unheard of for the host himself (or herself) to clean the feet of guests; it was beneath him (or her). Jesus, however, shows us what it means to follow Him and serve others in John 13:12–17:
“When he had finished washing their feet, he placed on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I even have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that’s what I’m. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you furthermore may should wash each other’s feet. I even have set you an example that you need to do as I even have done for you. Very truly I inform you, no servant is bigger than his master, neither is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you recognize this stuff, you shall be blessed should you do them.”
What is Jesus’ point in all this? He is giving an example. If the master, teacher, and Lord willingly perform considered one of the bottom tasks (if He serves), then so should the master’s servant be willing to take part in such acts of service. If Jesus, because the master, serves others, who’re we, as His followers, to not do likewise? Elsewhere within the Gospels, we read that being great means serving (Mark 10:35–45, Luke 22:24–27). Jesus’ ultimate act of service was willfully going to the cross for all of us.
The Risk and Reward of Relationships
No one said it’d be easy, and nobody said there wouldn’t be any form of risk related to this sort of love. This love of sacrifice and repair requires relationships, and relationships are messy. However, it’s interesting that the things we so desperately cling to—things like time, possessions, power, and private interests—are the very things which can be passing away. These are the very things we cannot keep. But the things that really have enduring value, God’s Word and folks, are the very things we’re so inclined to neglect!
Yes, there are risks related to relationships: the chance of bewilderment and the chance of pain. But the rewards of investing our lives in people of immeasurable value far exceed the pain that folks may cause us. We are called to like and to function Jesus loved and served us. Insofar as we do this, we’re like Jesus.
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Sanja Radin
Kenneth Boa equips people to like well (being), learn well (knowing), and live well (doing). He is a author, teacher, speaker, and mentor and is the President of Reflections Ministries, The Museum of Created Beauty, and Trinity House Publishers.
Publications by Dr. Boa include Conformed to His Image, Handbook to Prayer, Handbook to Leadership, Faith Has Its Reasons, Rewriting Your Broken Story, Life within the Presence of God, Leverage, and Recalibrate Your Life.
Dr. Boa holds a B.S. from Case Institute of Technology, a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary, a Ph.D. from New York University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in England.
