One of my all-time favorite hymns is “Take My Life and Let It Be” [affiliate link]. This moving prayer rightly places our hearts and our lives where they belong – at the altar of sacrifice for our Heavenly Father. It’s a melodic exhortation to recognize that all we have needs to used for Him.
Within the song, there’s a powerful line that reminds us that worship not only occurs in church, but with how we treat others for worship is rightfully proclaiming who God is. The second verse begins:
Take my hands, and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.
These words are a startling recognition that our actions towards each other should not begin with our feelings but with the prompting of God. It’s a hard truth. Because God is love, we must love (See I John 4:9).We want to act in accordance with how each other deserves, not in accordance with the graciousness that the Father has shown us. We want to behave as a response to the actions of another, not as a response as to His actions on the cross.
However, as I’m often reminded, we’re all broken. None of us are without the need of a Savior. And since He sacrificed everything as an act of His love, perhaps we can sacrifice our assessment of another’s deservingness as an act of our love. If not for the other person, for the fact that our Father’s love towards us compels it.