Free to Love #3 - What You Think of Others Is Very Important

Me, Lee Davis, & Jon Standifer

Years ago God told me "John, what others think of you is mostly not important. But what you think of others is very important." And: "What I [God] think of you and others is most important."

Here there are three ideas:

What others think of you is mostly not important.

1. What is most important is what God thinks of you and others.
2. What you think of others is very important.

Today, I'm addressing #3.

3. What you think of others is very important.

#3 is not possible without 1 and 2. The more you are concerned about what others think of you, combined with an experiential lack of God's love for you, the less you will be free to love others as Christ did. The person who tries to please others to gain approval would not do so were they secure in God's love for them.

Only a free person can selflessly love others. Love is selfless and other-cenetered. More strongly, only a free person can love even their enemies. At its highest this includes feeling. Com-passion is "to feel with others." Real love is feeling + action, expressed outwardly. Jesus looked on the people with compassion, as sheep without a shepherd.

This is important because God so loves the world, and the world includes more people than you. If God loves others, then we are to do no less. It is not a God-thing to think little or not at all towards those in your circle of life.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Love your neighbor as you do your own self.

That is the heart of true Christianity.