What is it to love others?
As I presently see it, here’s an answer that may surprise you: to love others is to worship God.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1 (ESV)
To offer your body as a living sacrifice to God is to, in effect, give him everything you do with your body — all you think, say, and do — and the apostle calls that “your spiritual worship.” Add to that the paramount teaching of Scripture that absolutely everything we do is to be defined by love. We read that unless that is so, all we are and do amounts to nothing.
Here’s another teaching on worship. You will recall Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. She had a question for Jesus about worship to which he replied,
“A time is coming — and now is here — when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”John 4:23-24
I suggest that to worship God “in spirit” is to have our attitude governed by God. To worship him “in truth” is to have our actions governed by God. And you well know that, “God is love.” 1 John 4:16
So to begin with, I’m advocating that to love someone starts with an attitude towards them whereby we inwardly acknowledge the following: “you are exceedingly precious to God.”
Then — flowing from that attitude — we make an irrevocable commitment to each person we meet to do all that we can to help them become all that God created them to be. That is to say, we listen to Jesus so as to work with him in whatever he would have us do.
So, love others as he has loved you — worship the Lord.
