Love Here & Now

Posted by natehurtsellers on May 26, 2010 in Daily Bread | 3 comments

In Mathew 6:9-10 Jesus said, 9"Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.10Your kingdom come, Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven . . .’"

There are some difficult implications in these first few verses of the Lord’s Prayer. Basically, we are praying for God’s Kingdom and God’s will to be an active and engaging part of our life on earth. But how often does this actually happen? If God’s Kingdom existed on earth as it does in heaven, wouldn’t our world be radically different? I think so.

And so why isn’t it? Why don’t we see God’s Kingdom pervading every corner of this small planet? Well, I think that sometimes we get so caught up in the everafter that we lose sight of the here and now. We’re all so concerned with where we’ll end up that we forget where we are and what we can do here. And as a result, we forget to do that one big thing that Jesus was so into: loving your neighbor.

Look at Jesus and the way he lived. Through his love and compassion he demonstrated God’s Kingdom and God’s will to the world, and the earth has never been the same. Now imagine if we stopped focusing on ourselves and instead acted with the same compassion and the same intense love that Jesus demonstrated. How might the world look then?

Not too long ago, two dudes named Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove threw together some examples of ways to love your neighbor. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty incredible and definitely worth checking out. Here’s a link: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=70441288612&topic=7656

So let’s try to put some action behind our prayer. Let’s love others here and now.