Selflessness...

Yesterday I mused a bit about the fact that for the church to be the church it meant dropping our agendas, pretenses, and pride to be who Jesus Christ called us to be. The same is true for real friends, they must do the same or as the plaque my students gave me for my birthday says, "Good friends are like bras- supportive, make you look good, never leave you hanging, and are always close to your heart." Now that might be a bit off my mark, but it hits the point: friendship requires a degree of selflessness.

Jesus modeled selflessness as one of His last acts on the planet by washing His disciples feet. Peter, being Peter, first denies Jesus' servitude then asks for more than Jesus said he needed! But the point is this, Jesus lowered Himself to the position of the lowest servant to help us understand what He meant. Loving others means dropping our pretenses of pride and the way we think so highly of ourselves so that we can embrace what God has actually called us to do: serve them in love. The simplest things can carry enormous meaning, from smiling at someone to opening a door, leaving them with something greater than we are.

Evan Almighty may have had more right than many thought: Acts of Random Kindness are a large part of what we are called to be/do as believers in Jesus. As my wife mentioned in Kansas City this past weekend, "We need to get some $5 McDonalds gift certificates or something like that whenever we have extra cash, so we can just give them out," in response to seeing a homeless man with a sign on the side of the road. How many people like that do we ignore when we are more than capable of taking care of their needs? How can we claim to be Christ-followers when we don't even try to live with selflessness as Jesus did? How can we fill ourselves with lots of God-talk but little God-acts? James summed it up pretty well:
"Do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup - where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?" (James 2.14-17 The Message)

Why do we insist on talking without acting? Is there some great reason we can think caring thoughts but not act upon them? Or does it all come down to us not being able to get past ourselves? I would venture to guess that it normally comes down to the latter, making the problem simple: we lack selflessness and make up for it in selfishness...

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