Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for this daily challenge. It’s Thursday, the day we try to apply and live out what we’ve learned this week from the Bible. This week we’ve been studying how followers of Jesus form communities marked by love, called the church, and that love is the essential ingredient.

Now you might be surprised I didn’t say it was God, or Jesus. But, elsewhere in the Bible, we read quite simply that God is love.

Or we hear Jesus saying there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

See, God is love, and Jesus is the greatest example of this love in human experience.

We won’t be perfect at this – It’s so hard for people who have been corrupted by sin to be loving. Gratefully, we can learn from Jesus’ example of how he lived on this earth.

This letter, 1 Corinthians, was written to a church struggling with all kinds of problems.

They were missing the secret sauce of love – there was infighting, people opening sinning, including incest and adultery.

They knew all about lust, but not love, especially for one another.

So to be followers of Jesus, we already learned a few weeks ago, we can’t be alone. We’re made for community. This lets us practice loving others, even when it’s hard.

We see here that it’s essential not just to be in this community, however, but to be practicing sacrificial love.

Remember BLESS? I encouraged you last week to do this to love others:

  • B – Begin with Prayer
  • L – Listen & Learn
  • E – Eat with someone
  • S – Serve their Needs
  • S – Share your Story

Encouraged you to do that with someone in your life who isn’t necessarily a follower of Jesus.

Challenge: This time, practice BLESS with someone in your Christian community, whether it’s a church, or a small discussion group for these challenges, or simply another Christian in your life.