Mirror, Mirror on the Wall?

How do you think you are doing in the love department?  When I begin to complain about those around me, whether family, friends, or just about anyone, I know that I must go one step deeper and look into my own heart to find the answers to my dilemmas about love.  Maybe I don't like the way someone is treating me; I feel marginalized, less than a person, or my ideas discounted.  I have learned, ever so painfully, it is a call to look into my own heart and see how I am treating others, or how not to treat others.  If I look below the hurt and examine myself, I usually find that I have often treated people the same way.  Self-centeredness rears its ugly head not just in those around me, but is rooted in my own heart.  It also shows itself at times when I am being "good."  What are my true motives for being "nice?"  Is it truly for the glory of God, or is it grounded in the fact that I want to be loved, respected, or seen as "spiritual?"  

Christ's love for us is radically different from my selfish, sinful ways.  It is grounded in true sacrifice.  Love, true love, is and should be also.  This is a far cry from the way that I love most of the time.  How much do I really sacrifice in loving my husband or my children?  Oh yea, I give up my nap in the afternoon to go to Karen's soccer games.  I do the laundry for my husband so that he can be about your business.  I serve my family, don't I?  Christ gave up His life, He bled and died for me.  That is true sacrifice.  Those things that I do for those around me, does it involve giving up of self?  Now I am not saying being a door mat, not having boundaries, or giving up yourself so that only a shell remains.  Been there done that too.  I learned through being a "shell" that it was born out of selfish motives also.  Our only motive should be for Christ and His Glory.  Sometimes that means taking stands, always being who Christ made you to be, being a lover in one instance and a fighter in another.  It must be grounded in Christ's glory, and lived out through His Spirit.

Reading in Real Christianity by William Willberforce this morning, he makes some wonderful observations of human nature.  On page 118ff:

"So before truth and reason, natural benevolences are bad magistrates, parents and friends.  For they are defective in those very qualities that these relationships in life require.  Thus defective, they are not free from selfishness.  For if we trace such deficiencies to their true source, we will find it chiefly arises from an unwillingness to submit to a painful effort.  (Genuine good, however will command sacrifice!)  Or the disposition arises from the fear of losing the regard in which others hold them and the good opinion they want to receive."

"Such weak benevolence, not rooted in the true religion, is of a sickly and short-lived nature.  It lacks that hardy and vigorous temperament one needs to put up with injury or that one need even to survive the rude shocks of which this world forever exposes one.  It is only Christian love that is of the character that 'suffereth long and is kind,' that is 'not easily provoked,' and that 'beareth all things and endureth all things' (I Corinthians 13).  

"Review the whole of life from the spirit of youth with its flush of confidence and youthful, ardent hopes to the frustrated pursuits and disappointed hopes of advancing life.  A little personal experience of the selfishness of mankind has dampened out the generous warmth and kind affections we first felt.  The prompt awareness and unsuspecting simplicity of our earlier years have been reproved."

"As it is with natural benevolence, so it is with so called useful lives.  Again their intrinsic worth is apt to be greatly overrated.  They result from a natural busyness and activity that loves to get on and move.  It loves, too, to receive credit for it."

"If, however, you are conscious that you are naturally rough and austere; or that disappointments have soured you or prosperity puffed you up; or from whatever cause you have bad temper, roughness of manners, or harshness of language-do not despair.  Remember, Scripture promises the divine agency to 'take away the heart of stone and give a heart of flesh' (Ezekiel 11:19).  Pray then, earnestly and perseveringly that the blessed aid of divine grace may operate effectively in your behalf."

We will only effect change in those around us by first changing ourselves.  Prayer + Humility is the answer to all that grieves us.  

Learning the hard way till He comes..............................Lynn