Day 8: Love Lays Ego Aside

 Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul - 1 Pet 2:11

A lot of times, we can confuse love with that heady feeling we get when we see something or someone we care about deeply. But that isn’t love. A side effect of love, but not the real deal. 

This year will be my fourth year since accepting Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior but I can tell you I haven’t been head over heels ‘in love’ this whole time and I have a strong feeling that is how God intended it to be. In 1 Corinthians 13, we see the attributes of true love and not once does it say true love will give you butterflies in your stomach 24/7. Forget Hollywood and the lies.

Recently, my boyfriend and I had a fight and I remember tossing and turning in bed as I struggled between feeling anger and remorse. 

I had said a couple of things that upset him. I wasn’t sorry because I fully intended to cause pain. It had been a long day and I was lashing out at everyone around me. Of course, he was easy target. My ego was important and I wasn’t going to apologize. I expected him to understand that I had had a long day and was very hormonal. I mean, I’m the one who bleeds for 5 days and doesn’t die. I’m the female. I’m the weaker vessel. If he really loved me he would forgive me for what I said. Lots of personal pronouns huh?

By the next day, my ego didn’t matter as much as it did the night before. But I still wasn’t about to apologize. Midday my conscience had dealt with me very well and humbly apologized. I still did not feel like apologizing but I did.

You might say, well, Ibukun that’s your boyfriend, you’re supposed to do stuff like that but in reality loving someone, anyone, isn’t that easy. 

To love like Jesus, you’ll have to lay your ego aside. Accept the apology you were never given. And if it was you who wronged, just fess up and apologize already.

People are more important than bitterness and ego. We know that in theory but when faced with the two options we pick our ego 9 out of 10 times. We don’t have to feel like apologizing before we do because I can bet eternity on it that Jesus did not feel like dying on the cross for us before He did. He saw the bigger picture. He weighed his options in light of love and considered the cross only a little suffering, a small price to pay, to buy the people He loves back. 

That’s what real love looks like. Real love says, even though my brother did _____ yesterday, I’m going to make his breakfast like I always do. Real love says, even though my father hasn’t been a good dad to me in the past, I’m going to lay bitterness aside and give him another chance.

Because if we’re honest, unforgiveness, bitterness and anger never did anyone any good. We need to consciously choose to die to self and live a wide open, spacious life. And it’s here that I’m oh so thankful for grace because we can’t truly love without having known the One named Love.

“Love…Isn’t always “me first,”

Doesn’t fly off the handle,

Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others…” (Excerpt 1 Corinthians 13 MSG)

IBUKUN ||SHE IS OUT OF CONTROL

Day 8: Love lays ego aside.

Most of the time, its always hard for me to apologize first when I have a misunderstanding with someone and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this but it should not be like that. God's business is putting things straight [see Psalm 11:7] and that should be our business too. 

Today if you have offended someone and you know it or probably you were not wrong but you hit a rough patch with someone, be the bigger person and let go of pride [Love is not proud] try hard to win them over and set things straight till you can look them in the eye and not feel an iota of anger/pain. God always tries to reach out to us even through our shortcomings and if we must Love like he does, we should try to do that for someone today. 

This is day 8 of #31daysofLovinlikeJesus you can click here to see a list of posts in these series.

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