Loving like Jesus Means We Need Grace

Yesterday I said 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.

Easy to understand. But what does that mean? What does that look like?

Let me highlight the key thing that Jesus is going to have the Holy Spirit working to change in us: self-centeredness.

Self-centered attitudes and the habits and actions they produce are the cause of all the problems we have in loving each other the way God loves us. They are not “a“ cause, or a “major cause,“ or even the “primary cause“ of relationship problems they are the cause! A self-centered attitude puts you at the center of your universe and puts you at odds with God. It assumes you are the most important, and by default makes everyone else less important. When we are self-centered we inevitably fall into any of seven habits that undermine and destroy relationships:

1. Self-serving. We become selfish. All our relationships are geared to our own personal benefit. We are friends with Joe because he can get us tickets to the Patriots game. We won’t be friends with Bob because Joe doesn’t like Bob and we don’t want to lose our connection to Pats tickets. We won’t help the neighbor move because we would miss seeing our favorite TV show. The more self-centered we are the more weight we place on our own comfort, convenience, and preferences in our relationships.
2. Judgmental. When we are self-centered we tend to become arrogant. We start to think better of ourselves and become critical of others. We pride ourselves in pointing out the short comings and mistakes we see. We start measuring people by our own set of expectations and preferences. We start labeling people as if we were the keeper of the standard that people should aspire to or that we hold the opinion that everyone should hold to.
3. Gossip. When we are self-centered we enjoy gossiping and hearing gossip. We enjoy the feeling of being in the know of other people’s moral failures and indiscretions. We begin to convince ourselves that anyone’s business is our business.
4. Argumentative. We can become very contrary. Always picking fights, always needing to have the last word, always needing to be right. We end up callusing ourselves against admitting that we are ever wrong or need to apologize or ask for forgiveness.
5. Resentful. When we are self-centered we tend to focus on the hurts we have received. We hold on to the pain. What happened to us is all that seems to matter. We don’t want to let the person who hurt us get off. We want revenge.
6. Fearful. When we are self-centered we find ourselves in constant fear of others. Afraid of people who can do the job better than us. Afraid of the person who might ruin our reputation. Afraid of being left out. Afraid of not being able to please the people we feel like we need to please.
7. Manipulative. We start to paint things in our favor. We use people to get what we want. We use situations to get what we want. A white lie here, a little rumor there. We overstate the good and hide the bad.

Let me tell you something very important to understand if we are going to go anywhere with this. Everyone you know is self-centered. We were born that way. That is what sin is. All of us struggle with those behaviors to greater or lesser degrees. All of us. Relationships cannot survive these behaviors. You cannot be in healthy community with people while living a self-centered lifestyle.

Jesus lived the opposite way because He had the opposite attitude. He wasn’t self-centered but other-centered. He wants us to live the opposite way. He made that possible by giving us new hearts and having the Holy Spirit live inside us. That’s the meaning of Philippians 2:13 (NLT), God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.

If we have any hope of overcoming our self-centeredness, it is going to be by the transforming grace of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is exactly what He is doing—discouraging, disarming, dismantling our self-centeredness and re-building us into people who are other-focused. What that looks like will be the subject of tomorrow’s post.