Change the World; Start at Home

One of the hardest places to live out our faith is in our own home.  We grow comfortable and complacent with our spouse, children, parents, brothers, sisters, and everyone with whom we dwell.

God gave us His Son as a gift, which we celebrate at Christmas and honestly should celebrate every day.   The Son gave His life for us who believe.  We give good gifts to our children.  In Matthew 7:11 Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

In the Sarr household we are continually asking our children, ‘are you treating your sibling as more important than yourself?’  I can swiftly ask this of them, but I need to ask myself if I am also living this.  Ouch!  It is much easier to observe the inconsistencies of those around us than to look ourselves in the mirror and discern if we are doing the same.  So we should “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than [ourselves]” (Philippians 2:3).

Christ lived a COMPLETELY selfless life.  Every second, every minute, every hour of every day.  Christians are called to imitate Christ, and to live selflessly for others.  “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God” (3 John 1:11).

Practically speaking, what does this look like?  It means we have to get off the couch and go love our children enough to “remind” them how to live and treat others instead of ignoring their wrong behavior.  It means even when we are exhausted beyond belief we need to be there for our spouse.  It means saying the hard things to others even when it’s uncomfortable because we love them more than ourselves instead of dwelling on the fact that me we might offend them or lose their friendship.  It means dying to self and living for Christ.  So DON’T get married and definitely don’t have kids if you don’t want to live a selfless life.

Wouldn’t it be culture changing in our own homes and the world if we determined to live selfless lives?  “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).

Let’s go change the world…