Chapter 4 Next Step

     After we get the part down about dying to our own will, the rest starts falling into place! But you do need to remember that there are times your will tries to recover it's position as the "Boss" in your life. Keep dying to it daily!
     The next thing that Jesus taught goes after "Love the Lord God", it is to "Love your neighbor as yourself" Mark 12:31. 
     If you have died to your own will, the first step, remember? this won't be as difficult as it is if you're still holding onto it.
     As you have started implementing your "Love of God with all of your heart" as your first, most important foundational steps to stand on, "loving your neighbor" just makes sense! 
     When God started re-arranging my heart to make it a place He could rest in, He took time to convince me that He loved me! Beyond question and beyond reason He loved me! He set about changing my understanding through His word, through other Christians speaking into my life,  through Christian music and through His provision and protection of me. 
     After He convinced me that He did truly love me and had even designed me the way I was, not to be like I might of wanted to be~ skinny, vivacious, charismatic! He loved me plump! and mellow! and quiet! Wow! It still surprises me that He made me this way and wants me this way! If He is happy with me this way, who am I to question and actually it's an insult to Him for me to question His workmanship! 
     The next thing He started showing me was that He also created some of the people that I didn't find too attractive, either in their appearance or characteristics! He showed me that He is the Potter and I am the clay, and so is everyone else! I have to learn, and so do you, to appreciate His workmanship in others and not criticize it!
     If He has designed everyone, then they deserve respect, right? Don't we believe in respecting God's workmanship? Yes, we do! We find it easy to marvel at the sunsets, the mountains, the oceans, the stars and even babies! 
     As the babies grow older they lose some of the marvel that we had seen in them before, or do we cease to see it? And then by the time they are adults we tend to not marvel in them at all! Some of them we barely tolerate! But that's not the way it should be, we are to "love" them as ourselves and even more! With humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Philippians 2:3b. Remember, they are God's creation!
     In our own power we're not able to love everyone as Jesus would have us to do, but He did die for all and His Holy Spirit can bring the love of them into our hearts. It goes back again to dying daily to our own wills and living in His. 
    Are you still His disciple? Still with us? Then Love your neighbor as yourself! Sorry, no exception!