What do you want from me God?

My Bible has 1445 pages. It's easy to start thinking that this thing that people call Christianity is really complicated, since it takes that many pages to lay down the rules. It turns out the opposite is true. The more I read in the Bible the more I find that every story is pretty much the same. It goes something like this:

God loves the people, but the people choose to turn their backs on God. The people fill their lives with different types of sin and don't care about doing the right thing anymore. God brings down devastation on the people. The people eventually realize their wrongs and repent and turn back to God. The people go on loving their God and loving each other. God loves the people.
A few decades later the people have forgotten why God matters and turn their backs on him (again).

The same cycle continues, over and over again. God's greatest command for humanity is to love God and to love each other. It's not a complicated command, but it's still so easy to turn away and choose selfishness instead. If I was to ask God: "Okay God, this book of yours has a lot of pages so could you please narrow it down for me? What is it that you want from me?" I have a feeling that God's answer would be this:

"This is my command: Love each other."
John 15:17 NIV

Okay, that sounds simple one might think, but when we look closer at this chapter we see that it isn't just any kind of love that Jesus talks about, but the deepest one of all:

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
John 15:12-13 NIV

We spend so much of our time building up our lives. We are building a career, building up a retirement fund, building up our status, image or brand. Then Jesus comes into our lives with his very counter-cultural command, saying that we should "lay down" our lives for other people. We spend so much time trying to get things, but according to Jesus it seems like the point with life isn't about what we get, it's in what we give.

Love is a verb, when we love others we do something for them. Here's a few examples of what we can do for others: We can help, comfort, encourage, protect, parent, feed, adopt, clothe, support, heal, nurse and forgive. You can add your own verb. Who around you needs some of your love today? Choose one of the verbs above and get to it! :) It's not complicated, it's mission possible.