Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Developing a Winning Attitude”. Hmmm?? I wonder what that title means? Is “developing a winning attitude” an attitude of constant cheerfulness? This could lead to phoniness. Is “developing a winning attitude” an avoidance of unpleasant truth and only being agreeable? What if we don’t agree? I believe that Jesus’ words to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39) can give us direction here.
To “love your neighbor as yourself” can be and has been a source of debate over the years. But the Scriptural definition of love is really a helpful determiner here… “Love does no harm to a neighbor” (Romans 13:10). Therefore, love is doing what is right for your neighbor… and for yourself, too. And this, then, is your “winning attitude”. Doing what is right for your neighbor.
But before we do what is right, we need to understand what our neighbor perceives as that. We cannot plow-in and just do what we believe is right… even if endorsed by a scriptural text or two. It has been the bane of Christianity since the beginning. To dictate what is right to others… our perception of right. To mount the papal-seat of authority and dictate duty and obligation to others. Yikes!
So in order to do what is right for others we must listen to them, really listen and pay attention to them. If we do this, we will see their perceived need even as we see how best to meet their need. Seeing the other as a child of God (like me) respected and loved by God (like me). God does not trample on our “individuality, (our) power to think and to do” (Education pg. 17). And neither must we trample on other’s individuality for they are His children, too. The “apple of His eye” (Zechariah 2:8).
This is really the key here. All of us humans tend to place others into groups. Ignoring their individuality. But this is not God’s way and must not be ours, either. We of all people on the earth must see and treat all as individuals, seeing them as such, listening to them as such, and relating to them as such. If we who trust God would but do this, our world would begin to be flooded with the glory of God. Because His glory is His character of love.
Seeing others this way is messy. It is involving ourselves in their lives. It is time consuming. Yet, it is love. Real love. Not just talk, not pontificating, not philosophy or theology. It is love. Down and dirty in the trenches… love. The kind God has. The only kind there is. And if we relate to others this way, we will “know how to speak a word in season” (Isaiah 50:4). We will know how to present “the truth in love” (quarterly lesson title for Tuesday, August 25). For truth to be received at all, it must be presented in love.
For too long, we Christians have been notorious for relating to others only to proselytize them. To convert them to our denomination. Treating them as things, not as people at all. No wonder Christianity is belittled by our prevalent culture. At a time when there is a dearth of love in the land, we who know love, do not love but instead treat people as things. My prayer for us all is that we will learn the value and the language of love… true love. That we will consent to die to self with Christ so that His life of love can be reproduced in us. That we will see others as God sees them. His children, priceless. And that we would sacrifice everything for each.
With brotherly love,
Jim