love like His

Valentines' Day is fast approaching!

I have been thinking a lot about love and how we are commanded by God to love each other. I would like to know what that means to most people. We are supposed to love each other the way God loves us. We are to humble ourselves, not just to the Lord, but to others. When Jesus told the people to love others as we love ourselves, He was including our neighbors, our kids' friends, people who might aggravate us, and also people who speak negatively about us. We are not told to love those who it is easy to love, we are told to love EVERYONE.

A small part of this love that we are supposed to have includes not judging others.

Matthew 7:2-4 (NIV)
2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

We have no right to judge others. Not to judge our friends, those who are against us, and (I think especially) other Christians! I can guarantee that there are better things we can be doing other than thinking about what our fellow brother or sister should or should not be doing. If we see blatant sinning, we need to pray about the situation and if God feels that I should go to the person about the sin, I need to go to that person with love in my heart and my words.

I need to look at what I am doing before I try to tell someone else (Christian or not) how to live their lives. I can see God, sitting on His throne at my time of judgement saying to me:

"Christie, who do you think you are? You have no right to tell so and so how to run their lives. You are not perfect as Jesus was, should I compare you to Jesus to determine whether or not you will be allowed into my kingdom?"

Ouch. I know I am supposed to try to be as Christ-like as possible, but as hard as I will try, I will never attain that perfection. No one will, heck, no one can! I can try though.... and that includes not judging others according to my standards, because maybe, God isn't working on that in their lives right now. If others are not meeting what YOU expect of them, then maybe God is trying to work on your heart.

I know He is working on mine.