Redefinition of Love

In the past three years serving with Sonshine I have become very accustom to being encouraged to die to myself.  To follow Christ's example and crucify myself so that others may have life.  So when reading "Leadership is found in becoming the servant of all.  Power is discovered in submission.  The foremost symbol of this radical servant hood is the cross" everything seemed right in accordance with the normal "die to yourself" mentality I have been learning.  But the next quote from Foster stopped me in my thoughts, "Christ not only died a 'cross-death,' he lived a 'cross-life.'  BOO-BAM!  This death I am encouraged to in scripture and by loving friends is not focused on the death portion.  Yes, the death is inevitable, it must happen.  Jesus did have to die on the cross to pay my bride-price.  But the celebration and the joy comes out of the result of that death.  The new life emerging from the ashes, from the dried blood on torn flesh stretched over wood and nails.  I too often find myself overwhelmed by the act of dying to myself, trying hard to put others first.  My motivation becomes skewed and warped because I feel it necessary and essential to die so others may live.  But in this action I forget the most essential part!  Through death emerges NEW LIFE! 

"Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:12-13

Suddenly, Jesus throws a curve ball at us by injecting the word love into the same sentence as laying down his/your/my life.  So where does this submission come from?  Where does the idea as Foster put it that "leadership is found in becoming servant of all" stem from?  Modeled after Jesus's tender and whole hearted compassion he feels for each one of us.  At the root, Jesus viewed the people he encountered while on earth through the eyes of his father.  Seeing each one of us as beloved children, gently inviting us into our creators arms.  How did he do this?  By standing in the quad of a university campus with a mega-phone and sign condemning all sinners to hell?  No.  He radically redefined our definition of love by his actions.  He spoke and taught, only when necessary, to the people but 

"he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death-even death on a cross." Phil. 2:6-8

Friends, I am challenged to radically look at the world and the people in it differently.  Through eyes shaped by the redefinition of love offered by Jesus's life.  Love is not a cream puff idea of flowers and chocolates one day out of the year for a special someone.  Love is choosing, willingly and openly to be obedient to being nailed on a cross so that others may emerge into new life with Yahweh.  As we are preparing for thousands of campers, hundreds of church staff, loads of meals to cook, and hot days on the water this summer, my prayer is that we, as children of God the Father, view the world and the people in it with new eyes enlightened by our saviors demonstration of love.  That the choice of servant hood and submission to authority, hot campers, and smelly Mikey's this summer come out of the true love you/I feel for the potential new life our death may bring by the life altering choice of following Christ in obedience to death on the cross.