1 Timothy 4:12

"Do not let anyone treat you as if you are unimportant because you are young. Instead, be an example to the believers with your words, your actions, your love, your faith and your pure life."

We've discussed the first 2 ways youth are to be examples to adults - in their words and actions. 1 Timothy also says that youth should be setting examples with their love. There are many different ways to love. When you think of love do you think of the way you love your parents? your friends? maybe your boy/girlfriend?

The type of love that I am thinking about when I read this passage is the same type of love that God showed us ... yes we all know the verse... John 3:16... I know I don't have to recite it because that's one verse I'm pretty sure we are ALL familiar with. We are talking about the love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross. The kind of love that is selfless, not a childish love that only considers and thinks about me.

Let's think about that for a minute.... a selfless love... a sacrificial love that puts others in front of yourself. Walker Moore makes a point in his book that young people today want their families to scrimp and save so they can have an iPod phone or join their friends on the senior-high trip. They want their parents/guardians or others to make sacrifices on their behalf. What happens when your parents/guardians or others say "No" to you? When they tell you you have to wait for that iPod or cell phone? Or you can't go on that trip? Do you try and understand why they are saying "No"? Or do you storm off because they wouldn't make the sacrifice for you? How many times do you say "That's okay. I understand or will try to understand why you said no." How many times are we, as young people, willing to make sacrifices on someone else's behalf? How many times do we surrender our own wants in order to help someone else?

This is the type of love we are talking about. ...the type of love that understands that the way to be an example in our love is to show the type of love where we recognize that sometimes the needs of others outweigh our own.