just love;

So, this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much, but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.
- Phillipians 1, MSG

Three things that jump at me when I read this passage;

Our love is supposed to flourish.
I had no idea what this word meant when I read it, so I looked it up in the dictionary. The most common definition listed is growth, or thriving. It means that we are supposed to love with the goal of reaching the highest point of love that we can possibly reach. I picture love kind of like a vine, climbing up a wall, always growing in height, but spreading width-wise too.
There's another definition for the word flourish that caught my attention. It's only listed once, and its very few words. It says, flourish: to sound a trumpet call or fanfare. Interesting, eh? Imagine if our love could be as bold as a trumpet call. Imagine love being that loud. And maybe that's not exactly what Paul is getting at, but when I see that definition that is what I want. I want there to be a trumpet-like boldness to the way that I love. That I would love without reservations, without conditions, without asking questions, and that it would grow more and more each day.

Love needs to be sincere.
It can't be fluff. It can't be meaningless. It involves using my heart, and my mind. Love needs to be intentional. It needs to be thought through. It goes beyond initial feelings. And I think for me that applies big time when it comes to people who are hard to love. Sometimes, people push my buttons. Sometimes I just don't feel like loving them. But love needs to be intentional. Paul says it needs to be intelligent. Maybe I won't feel the 'setimental gush' around every person that I encounter, but that doesn't mean I can't love them. I need to sincerely and genuinely love others, because Jesus loves me. And I certainly am hard to love, I'm sure.

Love needs to set an example.
It needs to paint Jesus in a good light. Others need to see the difference in the way I live, and want that difference. Notice that this passage says nothing about using our words. It doesn't say, 'love, and tell everyone about Jesus.' It says nothing about 'evangelizing.' It says to make Jesus attractive to all. How? By loving. By living by example. By living the way He did. It reminds me of that famous quote 'preach the Gospel at all times - and if necessary, use words.'
How? Love.


This passage really stands out to me. I feel like it gives us such a great 'how to' on what Jesus means when He says 'love one another,' and I love that. I love that He doesn't ask something of us and not help us out. He doesn't leave it for us to figure out by ourselves. He walks us through it. He sets the example. He helps us.
Sometimes we really complicate being Christians, don't we? And in doing that, I think we often totally miss the mark of what being a follower of Christ really means. What does it actually mean to follow Jesus? To live like Jesus?
I think it starts with love.
Plain and simply, just love.