Above Self

DEVOTION
ROMANS
ABOVE SELF
Rom 12:10
10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
NIV
Here is a tough one for sure. To be devoted to one another in brotherly love has a lot of action or attitude implied. But then stick on this honoring one another above myself just has to be like pouring salt in a wound. I just have to check out the Greek here and in doing so I see something which really boggles my mind. There is a word filóstorgoi used in this verse which is a word made from two other base words. The English spelling is philostorgos and I can see philo and storge. This is brotherly love, and family love. So I am thinking I am to love my fellow believers as if there are my family, or in the same way I love my family, my wife and daughters and granddaughters, preferring them over myself. Is that not the way I am to be toward my immediate family members? I think so. Am I always able to do it, I think not. Now I am thinking, this verse is telling me I am suppose to treat everyone else that same way, preferring them over myself. This is going to take up a lot of my concentration. What if people are needy? What if they don’t prefer me over themselves in return? What if they are just takers? What if they require more then I can give? Am I obligated to keep giving? What is all this going to look like? Do I have enough patience and fortitude to give and keep giving? Could my teaching and preaching and writing be considered my way of giving to them? To help them grow spiritually? There is another Greek word in this verse, I do not completely understand, and I think it was not really translated. It is the word NT:4285 proegeomai and it means to lead the way for others. I think this just might add the clarity for me, in that if I live my life as an example to follow, I am being devoted and honoring others above myself. I am helping them to live their lives in the same way. Maybe some of my teaching, preaching and writing do serve to do just that, but I also have to act and think toward them as Christ would. As I said in the beginning, here is a tough one for sure. Lord, help me, and give me the ability to really do this.