To Love like Jesus, You Need to Love Jesus

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:1-13, NIV).

A teenage boy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, had cancer and was in the hospital for several weeks to undergo radiation treatments and chemotherapy. During that time, he lost all of his hair. On the way home from the hospital, he was worried—not about the cancer, but about the embarrassment of going back to school with a bald head. He had already decided not to wear a wig or a hat.

When he arrived home, he walked in the front door and turned on the lights. To his surprise, about fifty of his friends jumped up and shouted, “Welcome home!” The boy looked around the room and could hardly believe his eyes—all fifty of his friends had shaved their heads!

Wouldn’t we all like to have caring friends who were so sensitive and committed to us that they would sacrifice their hair for us if that’s what it took to make us feel affirmed, included, and loved? Friends like that are hard to find in today’s world. That’s exactly the kind of friends that Jesus wants us to be to each other.

You can’t have community without relationships. And you can’t have good community without having good relationships. Being a Christian is about being in relationships. It is not primarily a head thing. By that I mean it is not only about what we think or what we believe about God and the Bible. It needs to come out in our character, our words, our actions, and most importantly, in our relationships. It starts with your relationship with God. That’s the great commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself. You are not going to be able to have healthy God-honoring relationships if you don’t have a relationship with God.

Now, let’s cut right to the chase. Having, fostering, and cultivating healthy God-honoring relationships is not always easy. It can be very hard. It can be painful. It can be confusing. It can be frustrating.

Now if we were all perfect, things would be different. When we get to heaven, we are not going to have a problem with keeping relationships healthy any more. But as long we are living in this world together, we are going to have problems with people. Everyone sins. No one is perfect. And until that changes we are going to always be learning how to love people and be in relationship with them.

The key then to having healthy relationships and keeping relationships healthy is having the attitude of Jesus Christ. God designed people to be in relationship with each other. We are intentionally wired for that purpose. We are meant to be in relationship with God, in relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and with our neighbors outside the church.

Jesus lived out all three of those relationships perfectly. And what we need to know about how to live in those three relationships are recorded for us in the Bible.

When we are in relationship with Jesus He is going to be working into us the same attitude that He has concerning being in relationship with God, the church, and our neighbors. The more you work on your relationship with Jesus, the more time you invest into your relationship with God, the better you will see and understand and adopt His attitude in relating to others. That’s because we become like the people we spend the most time with. My friend Charlie Jones says it like this,

If you hang around thinkers you’ll be a better thinker, hang around lovers you’ll be a better lover, hang around givers you’ll be a better giver, hang around a bunch of thumb-sucking, complaining, griping boneheads and you’ll become a better thumb-sucking, complaining, griping bonehead.

The more time we spend with somebody, the more we become like them as the picture below illustrates….

The more like Christ we become, the better we will be at relationships and the better we will get at dealing with problems and challenges in our relationships.