being good rather than feeling good.

"For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous." - 1 John 3:11-12

this is a passage that breaks my heart so much, it's hard for me to really be able to stand it. i would not be able to take it apart from the truth of the Gospel. it overwhelms me how much i fall short of the self-sacrificial love that Jesus expressed... and how often i want to bring glory to Kate. i am studying 1 john through the aid of tim keller. one of the first statements he makes in this section of 1 john is... "Because our obsession is with feeling good rather than being good, our commitment to anything greater than ourselves is avoided and so our families, our friends, our churches, our communities and our society are weakened." isn't that so true? we are so concerned with feeling good. i think its certain to say that Jesus did not always "feel good". and, i put too much weight in my relationships to make me "feel good" rather than sacrificially love others. if only every moment of my life was about bringing glory to God and so much of the time that is through loving others... not when its easy to love others and convenient, but when its hard and inconvenient and not my first choice for how i would use my time or resources.

john goes on to say... "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." - 1 John 3:16

we can love others because He loved us. isn't it easy to say that we love God's people? C.S. Lewis said "It is easier to be enthusiastic about Humanity with a capital 'H' than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular."

wow. that's very hard for me take. but, here's the good thing. i was almost in utter despair by all this truth. but thankfully, God graciously reveals our weakness and then He gives us this truth...

"for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything." - 1 John 3:17

tim keller says... "Still, the genuine Christian with a sensitive conscience will sometimes be accused, so John reminds her by way of encouragement that God is greater than her heart. He knows and sees evidence of the new birth in us even when we don’t. Essentially, what we are called to do when our consciences condemn us is to put our trust back in him and his acts on our behalf in Christ."

and finally...

“How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.” - Hebrew 9:14