Love like Jesus – Toni Babcock
I try to avoid holding grudges or criticisms against another person, especially if I’m disguising the fact that I don’t really want to see the issue resolved. I can do this when I’m running away from any personal responsibility to love like Jesus.
In the flesh, we’re a shifty lot. Isn’t it the truth? We pretend to hope God will “turn things around” for another person while we insist they need to get their act together first (according to whatever standard we espouse) and until they do, we’re quite satisfied with the status quo — happy to keep the onus squarely on the other, so long as God doesn’t expect us to change or intervene in any way that calls for serious introspection or self-sacrifice. It’s a recipe for spiritual deadlock that can last for years, and for no legitimate reason.
I’m beholden to love like Jesus, whether the people I have a bone to pick with are living up to the standards I espouse or not — obliged not only to pray and ask God to turn things around for them, but obliged to become personally engaged in acts of restoration by whatever means God supplies.
Jesus ministered to broken people — the weak, the powerless, and the condemned, and identified with them. The ‘broken’ in our lives are the ‘least of these’ Jesus spoke of in (Matthew 25:44-45 NKJV). I don’t want to be among the crowd that thought they were more righteous than ‘these’ and weren’t.
Today while there’s still time, I hear Jesus saying “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you — pressed down, shaken together, and running over — will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:36-38)
Toni M. Babcock is the author of Reflections from the Heart in Light of the Gospel of Jesus and The Stone Writer. Contact 
