Week 4 (March 20-26)
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31
I love me some me. So do you. By nature, we are prone to think of ourselves before anyone else and more often than anyone else. We can’t help it. But Jesus is no respecter of persons. He steps into our personal space and commands us to love others to at least the same degree that we love ourselves.
Jesus calls us to love those that God, in His sovereignty, has placed around us (Acts 17:26). Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, admonishes us to “count others more significant than [ourselves] . . .[looking] not only to [our] own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).
Loving others as ourselves isn’t easy. But if anyone knows that, it’s Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
PRAY AND ACT
How can you show the love of Christ to those in your circle of influence this week? Maybe it’s encouraging a coworker by taking them to lunch. Maybe it’s helping your neighbor with a project. Perhaps you could invite a coworker to attend church with you. Or it could be that you need to meet your neighbor for the first time!
Whatever that looks like for you, strive this week to build relationships with neighbors, coworkers, and others in your circle of influence—and pray that God would provide opportunities to share the good news of Jesus in those relationships.
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VC Devotionals 