Jesus' Lost and Found Department

     While reading My Utmost for His Highest this morning, I dug up a little nugget. In John 15:13, Jesus makes this statement. "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." My poor little noggin had always thought that Jesus was saying that a "Greater Love" would be to die for some one else. After all that's what He did....once....or so I thought.
     But, He wasn't talking about dying in this scripture. He was talking about laying aside our ambitions and desires to pour out His love on someone. Think about it this way. He didn't just 'lay aside' His life once and for all on the cross. He laid aside His life for thirty-three years when He stepped out of His comfort zone to walk in the muck and mire that humanity had become. He had one high spot and that was on the mount of transfiguration. Even with that, He had to interrupt the glory of God and a great conversation with Moses and Elijah to come down to cast out a demon.
     Jesus was talking about laying aside our personal ambition and interrupting the things we really would rather do to do something for someone else. And, He meant for us to do it out of a loving heart. He's not asking us to do it grudgingly or out of a since of duty. He asks us to purposely lay aside the things we would much rather do and do something that He would rather us do. He asks us to love somebody whom others might consider as being unworthy of love. After all, that's what He did for all of mankind. The good guys and the bad guys.
     He said something else in Matt. 16:25. "For whosoever will save his life will lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it." When we lay down what we would rather be doing and wash someone else's feet for them, so to speak, we begin to find new life in Jesus. We find something we've never had before. We experience a depth of His love that we have never sensed before. We develop a closeness with someone we might not have ever wanted to be close to and in so doing find the Jesus just stepped a little closer to us. We sense that we are more a part of Him than we have ever been. Truly, when we lose our lives for His sake we find explainable and unexpected treasure.