“Don’t should on me.”
I heard this said by a young mother once. She had her first child and she had all kinds of unknown people approach her with what she called “shoulds.” You probably know this as well. When people whom we don’t have relationships with try and tell us what we “should” be doing or how to do it. Life is hard and God doesn’t want a list follower but a relationship with a Christ follower. He said love is the greatest commandment.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:37-39
What if we loved people instead of putting
our “shoulds” on them?
You know that first reaction to someone who we think isn’t doing life the way we think they should be doing life and especially the fellow believer in our church.
I am guilty of the side eye too but did Jesus do that to the woman at the well? Or the adulterous woman the people wanted to stone? No. He first of all knew who they were and loved them in-spite of their sin. He told the woman at the well to go and sin no more. He also states that the one who is without sin is the one who should cast the first stone at the adulterous woman. Jesus loves us first. It’s when we know this love from Jesus and see it from our fellow believers we can be drawn back to him. No amount of “shoulds” will ever draw someone to us or to Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I need to step back from my own self righteousness and remember that God wants me to first get to know people and love them as he does. God loves us. It is then that his love will draw them back to a life of holiness. Our attitude as a professing Christian is the very thing that will either draw people towards Christ or push them away.
God didn’t push people away but he drew them in. That is the “should” that I need placed on myself today.
I should want to get to know people before I think anything else about them.
I should love like Jesus everyday.
