2018 It's a new year. A time for new beginnings. Perhaps a new, better mind set.

I want this year to love freely. To love like Jesus would love. Let Jesus' love flow through me. I want to think less and do more.

I don't want to focus so much on "what to do" or "not to do". I just want to love.

Both in the physical realm and spiritual realm, this year, I want to become others focused. Being others oriented is not only good for building and maintaining healthy relationships, but it is what Christ commands. Luke 10:27 says:

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

But it goes beyond the love your Grandma sort of love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails (1 Cor. 13:4-8).

Love, I would challenge, is not easy to prove when the conditions are optimal. They are best tested in fire.

Love.

Don't be afraid to love others. To love wide open. To not be afraid to reach out to the broken. To roll up your sleeves and not be afraid to get 'a little mud' on your face. To love the unlovely. The lost. The broken.

That's who Jesus loved.

He loved wide open.

Start seeing the people around you as image bearers. We bear the image of God, of Christ.

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'" Genesis 1:26a

So we were made in Christ's likeness. As Christ followers we are to love as He loved us. We can love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19) and His love is in us.

So love. Be free to love. Don't let traditions, or customs, or politics, or 'good parenting', or 'sound doctrine', or money, or YOU get in the way. love. Love freely. Love expecting nothing in return but obeying Christ and the joy it can bring in doing so. Don't focus, necessarily, on the person, but rather Christ. Sometimes loving the unlovely can be plain out not fun. In those circumstances focus on Christ. Think how He loves. He loves without condition, though his blessings do have condition—I'll try and make a point to write on this later.

Matthew 5:43-48 says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

So this year in 2018, if you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I would challenge you to Love Wide Open. We are to be marked by Christ. As image bearers, let us see other image bearers as those who have souls. Who have a story, who have a soul and desperately need Christ. Ephesians 1:13 says:

"And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."

Christ has come inside of us. Do people see Him?