What if? What if people really showed love to one another. I don't mean showed general kindness or even politeness. I mean what if we really loved people the way God calls to love. What if we emptied ourselves like Christ and poured our life out in love? And not just to our friends but also to the people who infuriate us, irritate us, annoy us, frustrate us, or make our life hard for us.
Loving like Jesus isn't easy. It means becoming a servant to others. Real love isn't just empty words. It's a deep, genuine concern for the people around us that is demonstrated in warm-hearted servitude. What if each of us truly used our gifts, talents, resources to extend practical love to the widow or single mom, to the heart broken, to the homeless and abandoned, to the hungry, to the depressed, to the sick, to the forgotten, to the naked, to the jobless, to the financially crippled or even just strapped?
What if we really loved our neighbor; the person who really does live next door or the person who works next to us or who sleeps next to us in bed? What if we really just loved our church family? What if we really extended ourselves to the people who sit in the pew or chair next to us or attend our small group/Sunday School class. What would a church that really loved each other look like anyway?
Peter says here in these verses that as believers we are to love through service, using whatever gifts we have to serve others faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms in such a way that people actually experience God. When we love (of if we would love) the way God would love or in such a way that people feel God's love, feel His arms, hear His voice, then our faults, our inabilities, our humanness quietly vanishes as God becomes alive in us.
God, I want to be known as an extender of you love. I want to be the conduit through whom you touch lives. I want to disappear only to reflect your grace. God I don't want to be a whiner, but a gracious servant that flows with your love. Let my words cease and your words speak forth your comfort, encouragement and good news. Let my hands move with your touch or assistance. Let my arms offer your embrace or become your strength.
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