Hello beautiful people! Get your Bibles out! This blog post is based off of Luke 6:27-38.
Jesus said, "lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High." When we do something with the intention of getting something in return, we're being pretty selfish. It's like we're forcing something to happen.
We must show a love that imitate's God's love for us. He sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die for us and what did he get in return? Not much. But he did it anyways. All out of love. And everything we do and say should be out of love for others as well.
When we do that, we receive way more than we deserve. Be selfless and give yourself up. You will be rewarded in ways you couldn't even imagine. But this should be an afterthought. He tells us in this Gospel to "Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing will be poured into your lap."
Oh! The overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God!
This reminded me of the Chinese food that I ordered the other day. The fried rice came in this cute small-ish container (a perfect portion for a small person like me) but the rice was seriously PACKED in there. It seemed bottomless and it was way more than I needed.
A dear friend of mine that is in the same Bible study group as me related this same idea to brown sugar. This brown sugar metaphor sounds way more lovely and sweet than my friend rice idea, so let's just keep going with this one instead.
That's what I imagine this love described here looks like. I'm imagining small humble acts that show genuine love. I'm imagining true selflessness. I'm imagining a constant intentionality to live like Christ.
The sweetness of this love reminds me of Mary's grace. It reminds me of the woman who washed Jesus's feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. It reminds of the Good Shepherd.
And this sweetness is all around us in ways that we sometimes don't see.
I'm currently in a season of gratitude and I can't help but write this while smiling like an idiot thinking of all the brown sugar love I have received recently. For the longest time I felt like I was "trying too hard" to find certain people to be friends with. I was impatient and I was getting really frustrated. But with time, God placed the most beautiful friendships right in front of me and gave me the patience to let them grow. I allowed God to work.
I never thought I would ever have friendships centered on Christ like this where loving comes so naturally. I never thought that I would have friends who would spontaneously get a huge group together to go to Friday night Adoration. I never thought I would have friends who genuinely want to pray for me.
I find myself thinking about this a lot and I'm so eternally blessed and grateful for these friendships. I find myself all warm and fuzzy every time we come together. I find myself genuinely prayed for (and I pray for them too). And I find myself inspired by them to continue this zeal for Christ and sharing God's love.
I'm not exactly sure what I did to deserve all of this, but this is definitely a testament to God's love for us and what happens when we try to love like God. And hopefully this means I've been doing something right because "For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you."
Spread this brown sugar love and you'll get some more sweetness in return.
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