You have great value to me

Be sincere in your love for others. Hate everything that is evil and hold tight to everything that is good. Love each other as brothers and sisters and honor others more than you do yourself. (Romans 12:9-10)

God desires a way of living that is "outside" or beyond our selfishness - the tendency we had before we said "yes" to Christ which kept us totally self-directed in our focus. Be sincere in your love for others. Sincerity is the idea of being free of hypocrisy. If you have ever caught yourself saying one thing, but thinking another, you might be dealing with this thing called hypocrisy - the tendency to be ingenuine or unreal. Neither of these traits are what God wants for us in relationships - first with him, then with others. He strives for us to be genuine or real.

We are to be genuine in our love for each other, by hating evil, holding tight to what is good, treating one another as brothers and sisters, and giving honor to each other more than we focus on seeking honor for ourselves.  We are to work toward a "protectiveness" of the relationship, guarding against those things which hinder the depth and closeness of relationship. Nothing will shut a relationship down quicker than for anger, malice, or wickedness to gain an inroad into the midst of it. We are to do more than just be "intolerant" of these things - we are to be so vigilant to guard against them that we just WON'T allow them to have an inroad. When anger enters, we are to immediately stop, take notice of what is being said or demonstrated in each other's actions, and then bring reconciliation immediately. This is the principle of not letting the sun go down on our anger. Just think of how much different our relationships would be if we were to begin to operate in this framework! When ill-intent is evident, conflict will arise. As with anger, there is to be an increasing "vigilance" to avoid all manner of ill-intent.

We are to run after the things which produce good outcomes in the relationship.  Those things which increase our moral foundation. Whenever we build one another up in the faith, we are fulfilling this task, leading to us loving each other as we'd love a brother or sister. We are learning to see each other as belonging to the same "bloodline". Those who are part of the family of God share a similar "heritage" as we do. As such, we are to enter into companionable relationship with those in this journey of faith. It means we need each other! We cannot walk it alone. We actually benefit from the closeness of seeing another walk out their faith - in the daily, rubber meets the road kind of way. God is reminding us of being cognizant of those who are "partners" with us in this walk. We don't always "get along" well, but we do grow from the interactions and see love become the driving force which binds us together.

The last reminder is to honor one another more than we do ourselves. This is a tough one, as you might imagine, because each of us tends to focus on self quicker than we focus on others. If we see something in them which is a complimentary skill or trait to what we possess, this might be something we "honor" in them. It might also mean we give some merit to another individual which they wouldn't receive otherwise. I think there are a whole lot of people today just walking around looking for someone to give them some merit - because their lives have been filled with all kinds of things labeled as "demerits"! I don't know where the "demerits" came from, or even if they were deserved, but I do know many individuals focus on those "negative" things they have been told or come to believe about themselves. When we are in relationship with each other, we have this unique ability to focus on either side of the column, so to speak. The choice to focus on those things which are of "merit" in a person's life is something we need to learn to do more often!  Just sayin!

Which side of the fence are you on?

In conversation today, you might hear words such as accountability and responsibility.  Newscasters speculate about who will be held accountable for certain actions.  Others postulate about what responsibility some aspect of society had for the actions of another.  Yet so many times, there is very little reference to the actions of one being called into account simply on their own merit.  We see shooters destroy innocent lives - then blame the lack of gun control as the "responsible" party.  When "breaking down" the influencing factors in the shooter's life, we gravitate toward what the parents did or didn't do, who should have recognized the mental health issues apparent in the shooter's life, etc.  We rarely gravitate to the place of saying this man or woman was totally accountable for their own actions.  Why?  Society today seems to want to "share" accountability and responsibility for the actions of individuals - not because they want to "own up" to the ugliness of the actions, but because there is some sense society "failed" the individual.  This may be true in a sense, but ultimately we are all held accountable for our own actions.  We don't stand on the merits of another - unless those merits are those of Christ in us.

The people I love, I call to account—prod and correct and guide so that they’ll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God!  (Revelation 3:19 MSG)

The Church of Laodicea is being "called into account" in this passage, but the message rings true to the individual believer, as well.  The issue as Jesus puts it is the believer is neither hot nor cold.  They are lukewarm - tepid at best.  In other words, they have not decided which side of the fence they want to stand on.  They have a foot on each side, so to speak.  On one side is the independent way of life - managing one's own life, choosing one's own destiny, living pretty foot-loose and fancy-free.  On the other side, in direct contrast, is the dependent life - not on society, but on Christ.  The situation as Jesus sees it is the issue of "staleness" or "stagnancy".  The one who is neither hot nor cold is really at a place of "staleness" in their lives.  

The ones who "ride the fence" really don't want accountability in their lives - they want to be able to choose the "side" based on the circumstances they are presented with.  If the offer on one side seems beneficial, they choose it over the other.  Then, as quickly as they might have chosen one action, they might determine the action did not produce the results they hoped for, so they "swing" to the other side.  It is both difficult to see oneself as responsible for the choices we make, nor accountable for the outcomes of those choices, when we are "swinging" back and forth all the time.  We have very little stability.

Don't lose sight of what Jesus says about these "fence-sitters".  He calls them the people he loves.  I don't think we realize how much Jesus loves those who have allowed stagnancy, or provided a way for the heart to grow stale, almost cold.  He loves them so much that he calls them to an "accounting" of their actions.  If you struggle over that one, let it sink in a while.  God loves the cold heart enough to prod it, correct it, and guide it back into warm and passionate pursuit again.  He brings the one who has drifted into lazy repose, resting on the ease of complacency, into lively pursuit.  He gets them back on their feet - turns them squarely around - then calls them to him.  

In order to pursue, there has to be an accounting of the present condition.  The one standing squarely on the "wrong side" of the fence must take responsibility for where they stand.  The one riding the fence, neither in nor out, is called to account - it is in making a choice to be "answerable" for the place we find ourselves that we take the first step in the right direction.  It is in choosing to stand not in our own merit, but in and upon the merit of another, Jesus Christ, that we find our life doing an "about-face".  It is in turning, we come face-to-face with the one who will turn up the heat in our lives - bringing us to a place of "full-boil" - disturbing both our stagnancy and staleness.

Jesus uses three terms:  Prod - Correct - Guide.  First, he prods - in order to stir us from our complacency.  Then, he corrects - not to point out the "wrong", but to "make true" what he sees in each of us.  He sees what he is in us, not what we are in ourselves.  In other words, in the removing of the errors and faults of our sin, he places himself squarely into those gaping holes in our character.  When he sees us, he sees himself - not the errors of our ways.  Last, he guides - taking us through what is unfamiliar and sometimes a little uncomfortable to us.  These three actions belong to him.  Yet, before all of these actions, there stands one action which belongs to us.  We become accountable for where we stand.  We take responsibility.  In this moment, we no longer stand on our own merit, but fully walk into the merit of the one who calls us into this place of accounting.  

Where there is complacency, there is opportunity for staleness and stagnancy to overtake every aspect of our lives.  The call is to take account of what we are producing - if it lacks life and vitality, we may just be on the wrong side of the fence!  Just sayin!