Small Pieces

I find working on a jigsaw puzzle to be fascinating, addictive, and annoying, all at the same time. My mother loved doing them while she still had vision, spending hours figuring out the edges, then the main images. It's even harder when the picture doesn't have recognizable images, only the shapes of the puzzle pieces to give an idea of placement!

I think that figuring out a jigsaw is a bit like our Christian responsibility of laying down our lives for others in small pieces every day: loving God enough to love others, taking time to figure out what the main picture is, and sometimes getting frustrated in the process.

1 John 3:16-18 – By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. (NKJV)

John the apostle spoke of God's life laid down for us, so we should lay down our lives for others. The apostle teaches that true love isn't just an inner feeling so much as the demonstration of love, shown by Jesus' sacrificial death. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8 NKJV) His death on the cross, combined with what it did for us, makes His the utmost act of love. Loving others is the essential test for Christians — saying "no" to what we want so that someone else can benefit. For most of us, that won't mean actually dying for another's sake, but laying our lives down for others each day, in small ways.

In this verse, John moves from the plural to the singular; from "brethren" to "brother". 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 everyone in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular. It is when the general becomes the particular that we find it so difficult to "love" the man next door whose dog habitually ruins our bedding-out plants. – Greville P. Lewis, The Johannine Epistles, p.86.

Could you lay down a small piece of kindness today? How about finding a way to help someone else sort out a puzzling problem? Can you do this because you love God and find the strength in Him to love another, even if the one you help isn't appreciative or kind in return, or if doing so is personally inconvenient? Then you will be loving not only "in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth."

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You laid down Your life for us, to show what true love really means. Help us truly to show Your love to others and to help the needy. Amen.