Dr Strangelove

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.�?(John 15:12-13)

We may think of laying down our lives for someone as dying because that’s what Jesus did. Jesus loved us so much He gave us His life by dying in our place on the rugged cross for all our sins so that we could enjoy the abundant, eternal God kind of life. After the resurrection, Jesus has asked us to lay down our lives in a different way. He’s asked us to show our love, not by dying for others, but by living for them. It means giving our lives by spending time in prayer for someone, building them up spiritually with the Word of God, giving of ourselves with love, friendship and understanding, or denying our own selfish desires to meet the needs of others. In this ME ME ME-first generation, that means we are to practice a strange kind of love that the world may respond by calling us, not Stanley Kubrick or Peter Sellers, Dr Strangelove.

The Bible tells us in Romans 15:1, “We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves.�?When we lay down our lives, we live to please God instead of ourselves. We are to obey and be guided by God’s Word and His agape love. If love leads us to the person next door or across the ocean, we follow. When love calls us to intercede, counsel or help someone, we just do it.