You Need More Than Youtube & Google – Thursday

Week 2 |IN – Loving People More

Listen instead of reading

Take a Moment

Ask God what He wants to show you before reading today

Read The Daily

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9)

Information is available to us 24/7 these days. You can google anything, anytime. You can find handy YouTube videos about how to fix a flat tire, how to budget, or even how to make ramen. And while that knowledge is beneficial, it can be easy to consume too much information in isolation—which isn’t what we were designed for.

God created us to live in community. That’s a word we use in the church world a lot that basically means we need good friends. Why? Because consuming information in isolation rarely leads to transformation. We need wisdom, and wisdom grows best in community.  Let’s take it back to the beginning. The first thing God said was “not good” was for man to be alone. We were created to need people. Jesus modeled this for us in His life and ministry on earth.  Jesus chose 12 imperfect people to live life with. They ate together, prayed together, and served together. Why did He do this? Jesus didn’t need people. He’s, well, Jesus. Maybe it was to show us how to love imperfect people for His perfect purpose. 

Jesus showed us what it looked like to have great friends. And like we said yesterday, He knew it would cost Him. He knew Judas would betray Him. And honestly, Peter was a little extra sometimes. He knew Peter would deny Him and reject Him, but Jesus loved them all anyway. 

There’s a lesson we can learn from that kind of love. We can often get so caught up in having the perfect friend that we miss out on the potential ones in front of us. When we find our people, we’ve got to love them—flaws and all—the same way Jesus loves us.  So if you’re trying to figure out your life plan without people around you, it’s probably not going to pan out the way you expect. We need people to live out our purpose. We need people to discover who we are. We need people to encourage us, strengthen us, pray with us, challenge us, and help us up when we fall and fail.

It will get messy. And it won’t always make sense. But when you choose to be like Jesus and love like Jesus—you’ll realize you’re heading in a better direction like we talked about in day one.

Prayer for the Day

God what are you  showing me?  What am I going to do about it? 

God help me to see one person that I can serve through a kind word, random act of kindness, or simple gift today?

Make sure you complete the reading or comment today.

Read The New Testament In A Year

4 x 6 Plan | Read: John 19:16-27 & 1 Corinthians 4:1-13