Changing Ourselves!

I don't make it a habit of stealing articles from others, but a friend of mine, Rev. Steve Brown of DeMaree UMC, penned this for his church's newsletter promoting a sermon series and I felt his words were relevant for us.

“Change” seems to be the watchword in politics, government, the financial world, and culturally in America. But the truth is “change” is hard for most of us. And most of us don't want to admit that we need to change. We would like the world and those around us to change to be more accommodating to us. But we are not sure that we really need to change. We are sure we really don't want to change. So while “change” is the watchword of the year, basically most of us are resistant to making personal changes. Most of us would not admit that as individuals we need to be more loving and show more of the characteristics of love. It requires painful, personal examination to evaluate where and how much we need to change in showing love. And we want to avoid pain at any cost. It is interesting that throughout the New Testament there is much instruction to Christians about the need to be more loving and how to be more loving. It is one thing to say that we love. It is much harder to show love in real life. We probably would not like it, if someone said to us, “Things need to change around here, and to do that we need to be more loving.” Some of the change that we need to make to be more loving seems so basic that we should not need to be reminded about it, but we do.
It is no wonder that Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)