Spiritual Simplicity

Following in Jesus' footsteps has been made into a religion by people. It's quite ironic because Jesus himself hated religion. The most religious people in Jesus' day were the ones who eventually killed him. Still, us humans thought it would be a good idea to take Jesus' life and turn it into a religion, let's call it "Christianity". Christianity, like so many other religions, is full of man-made rules and opinions. Jesus never liked rules, the Bible is full of examples of that. Jesus simply said: "come, follow me." Following Jesus back then wasn't easy, but it wasn't complicated. Following Jesus simplified comes down to three things:

Love God,
Love yourself,
& Love others like yourself.

The choice to spend a life walking in Jesus' footsteps isn't more complicated than that, but it's incredible how hard it can be to follow just three commands.

Love God

It's easy to not love God when we either don't know him at all, or we grew up in a religious church that taught us things about God that aren't true. If we are going to be able to love God we must first know Him. We can simply get to know God by opening up our bibles and by getting into a good Bible-based church on a regular basis.

Love yourself

In today's world, where our century has been called "the century of the self" it's easy to assume that we love ourselves. The opposite is often true. Being selfish or self-centered isn't at all the same as to love yourself. Self-care is to love yourself, to take care of your own physical, mental and spiritual health is to love yourself. Often we can live very selfish lives but forget about self-care.

Love others as yourself

You have to first love yourself to be able to truly love someone else. Once you know how to love and care for yourself you are ready to open your eyes to the needs around you. Loving others is about getting into an authentic community with others, it's about deep authentic friendships and it's about being willing to serve others wherever you go in life. The needs in this world are tremendous, but each one of us has been equipped with one or many special gifts so that we can fill the needs among those who are hurting. Our whole life is a mission, and this isn't mission impossible. :)