25/08/2026
"Do everything in love", (1 Corinthians 16:14) Paul Crook challenges us this week. How do we measure up? Do we live as Jesus lived? Read on.
Apart from loving God, Jesus gave us one of the most difficult of commandments to put into action. We all want to try and fulfill this commandment, and we do so with all the best intentions to be true to Christ’s instruction. "Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12)
No matter how truly we love our family, our husbands, our wives, our children, all too often we don’t come up to Jesus’ expectation of us.
You now maybe protesting this statement, and I’m sure I have trodden on a few toes here, but take a moment to do some self-examination.
What might Jesus tell you to do each day? Maybe take the hands of those close to you and feel the joy of their being there with you, in the same way you might feel the beauty of a stunning sunrise or sunset. Did you whisper “thankyou God”
I guess, what I’m trying to say, is that in loving your family, appreciating each and every one of them as a significant part of your life, you are showing your love to God. There is a plus here, in that part of loving God, is also to love God’s creation: the people around you. We do this through our patience with them. Through your thoughtfulness toward them, your warmth and prayers for them, especially at a time when you may think they don’t deserve it. The truth is that they need it. Jesus needs you to do it as part of His first commandment to firstly love God.
Sadly, I must confess there are times I don’t live up to that mark. But if I sometimes fail here, how much harder is it to love the stranger who is our neighbour.
You are in the mall, hurrying along with shopping on your mind. You pass an old man or woman sitting at one of those tables outside a café, he or she is nursing a coffee in a paper cup. Hands clasp around it as though it was a precious treasure. That person looks presentable, but you notice how worn the clothes really are. Then you notice the loneliness, the hopelessness in the eyes and you recognise the pang of compassion within yourself. Did you stop and ask if they were OK. Did you chat and offer your time to listen. You don’t know them at all, just another elderly person spending time in the mall.
What if you saw the same thing in a rough looking teenager, or someone who wasn’t like you in any way. Just as the people closet you, want and need your thoughtfulness, warmth and prayers, others do too. They may not think they want your compassion and caring, but they certainly need it. The world needs it.
“Everything”. That is, no part of life, work, or speech is exempt; love must guide every choice, every action, every word. Like Jesus’ command to love each other, doing everything in love seems impossible, but this is Jesus (through the telling by Paul) asking us to live our lives as He lived.
We often hear the phrase “live as Jesus lived”, but I don’t think we really stop and consider that that really means. Maybe we do, and find it confronting in its completeness. If not living up to any of the commandments is sinning, then, boy am I a sinner. Love is not just an emotion, it is action, and it is the action that marks us as a disciple of Jesus. Do others see what Jesus wants them to see in us.
Caring, compassionate people, willing to give their time, their attention, their understanding to those who need it, regardless of their colour, countenance or creed, or someone who only moves within their own circle of friends and other church goers, avoiding all others?
Think about the life Jesus led. Did He live a comfortable life staying within the village he grew up in? Did He keep to himself and not share how great God is, how His life was bound up in all that God is?
How much faith lies behind our beliefs? Whatever our personal answer is, there is always the overriding love Jesus has for you. It is a love that forgives when we fall, a love that smiles when we try, and a love that embraces when we love another as he loves us.
Wishing you all a beautiful week.
Love, Paul Crook
