How God says, "I Love You"

 As I mentioned in my last blog, there is a severe difference between how our world defines love and how the Scriptures define love.  And so I thought that this concept of love was worthy of a second look to consider how God shows His love for us.

"But God demonstrated His own love for us, in that while we were yet sinner, Christ died for us."  Romans 5:8 (NASB)

There are a few things in this verse that I would note about love.  The first is that love is and can be one directional.  God loved something that did not love Him back.  In fact, the Scriptures indicate that this is a necessity - we love Him BECAUSE He loved us.  This kind of love is hard to apply - it is a supernatural love, but it is a love that we should aim for - to love others without expectation of love returned.  

Secondly, love must be demonstrated.  It is no good to "love" someone and not actually show this love.  God demonstrated His love and so must we.

Thirdly, biblical love is sacrificial love.  A love that gives itself for another.  Our love must mimic this love.  I must sacrifice for my wife, for my family, for my church.  Love is by our own nature selfish, but this is not true love.  Biblical love is unselfish and kind and ultimately sacrificial.

I think it is important to look at what the Bible says about love and pattern our love after what God says and does!

Love - the most misunderstood word in the English language?

 Valentine's Day is coming for those of you who celebrate those kinds of things.  Around February 14th each year, people celebrate their love for each other.  However this seems odd given that we have a divorce rate that some estimate to be around 40 - 50 percent.  The way that this is calculated is sometimes off, but think about this - which is more common - a 40 or 50th anniversary celebration or a divorce proceeding?  This is a bit startling. 

I remember back when I was young working through the conceptions then of what love was.  Today we see a progression of that movement to redefine love.  Let me explain what I mean and let me start with a biblical definition of love.

Love : the willingness to put someone else's needs before self.  There is a love for friends, family, spouses, but ultimately love is defined in God.  And God loved us without us being able to contribute to his needs.  This definition does not mean we do not love self - in fact we are to love others as we love ourselves.  The biblical understanding of love reminds us that we have a natural love of self that we need to overcome to serve.

Our culture takes this and turns it on its head.  We are to love self first.  In fact all other forms of love center on our need to love ourselves.  If we don't feel love, we need to end the relationship and find someone who makes our feelings better.  What is the impact when we center love on ourselves instead of in God and his definition?  I think I will only mention three things.  One - we become hyper focused on meeting our own needs instead of service.  Two - we self-justify our own bad actions and behaviors because we have an excuse based on our own needs not being met.  Three - we fail to realize accountability in love.

These three things cause immense problems for us when we are learning how to build relationships and impact not only marital love, but love in the body of Christ, and even love for the world around us.  May we as the Church of Jesus Christ keep focused on what true love is and how we are to imitate it.  

Old Songs for a New Year

 As I have been reflecting on my life and our churches' life and all that has gone on in the past year in our world, I have been thinking about that songs that I sang growing up and all of the meaning that they have.  As I thought about this I thought I would occasionally share one of these songs' lyrics as a way to encourage you and remind us all that our faith is a faith that endures through time and circumstance because the One in whom our faith is placed does not change.  

The Solid Rock (text: Edward Mote)

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.

When darkness veils His lovely face, I rest on His unchanging grace;

In every high and stormy gale, My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood;

When all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found: 

Dressed in His righteousness alone, Faultless to stand before the throne.

Chorus: On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

A new year - the same hope

 It is almost time to think about 2021.  I say almost because we are not quite through Christmas.  But the new year is just around the corner, and for many, it cannot come too soon.  I have heard a lot of frustration and angst about 2020 and for good reason - a pandemic, a lot of loss and pain suffered by individuals that I know, a lot of loneliness and isolation.  And in the midst of all of that we want to leave and exit and get to something new and better.

I find it interesting that people hope for a better new year simply because it is a new year.  There is no magic that happens on December 31st at 11:59 that makes 2021 miraculously better.  There will be new and different challenges.  There will be new frustrations and new pain.  And yet there is hope.  Ironically it is the same hope that is available now and has been for all of 2020.  The hope is in Jesus.  And Jesus never changes.  So place your hope in something that does not change.  Place your hope in something that cannot and will not go away.  Put your hope in the new year in Jesus Christ and in Him alone.  And if you do this, you will not be disappointed.  You will still have pain, you may still suffer, but you will not be disappointed because Jesus does not fail.  

Christmas is not a season

 Every year, sometime after Thanksgiving and usually before Black Friday - which is admittedly a short window - I hear the expression "Christmas Season".  I do really understand what people mean by this and in many respects, I can concede that this is meaningful language.  People do think about Christmas more during the weeks between thanksgiving and Christmas.  Even I talk about the season.  We have cute Christian expressions like "Jesus is the Reason for the Season."  And yet as I was thinking about this I wonder if we do more harm than good when we think like this.  

For instance, if Christmas is really a season, then at some point it is over.  It might be over for you on the 26th of December.  Or maybe when they stop playing Christmas carols on your favorite station.  Or perhaps when you take your lights down.  But whenever that moment is, it is over.  A season ends.  Is this how we want to think of the coming of Christ?   Yes, he ascended, but the rule and reign that started when the angels announced the birth of a king is ongoing and permanent.  That which started in the nativity has no end.  The Scriptures even remind us of this in passages that we often quote during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas and seem to forget about until the next year.  

Or what about the Bible - do the passages on Christmas only have meaning for Christmas, or is the Word of God living and active and useful for the entirety of the year - does the prophecy of the coming of Christ matter only for four weeks, or does it matter year round?

I will not belabor the point but I think that we ought to remind ourselves that the message of Christmas is not a message that is to be limited to a time frame during the course of any year.  It is timeless and eternal and meant to be the center of our identity as followers of the one who came to die and be raised for our justification.  Christmas is a year long celebration of who we are in Christ!  So celebrate - even after the 26th of December!

Lamentations at Thanksgiving

 We as Christians have done a poor job at describing the whole of Scripture.  In fact, we have tried to make our theology a McDonalds menu of choices where we have the ability to present the love of God without His holiness, the goodness of God without His wrath.  Give me an order of the peace of God, but not the patience.  I will take an order of joy, but hold the trials.  In doing this, our theology has very little place for pain and suffering, for hardship and turmoil.  This is evident in the hymnody of our day and the seeming total absence of suffering in many of our worship songs.  Sure it might mention it in passing, but then it quickly gets to the good stuff.  Our Bible study does the same - talk about Christ who gives me strength and less about the danger and nakedness and peril we will face that cannot separate us from the love of God.  

And so we come to a holiday like Thanksgiving.  And we often do not have much we feel like being thankful for, and so we have tension in us.  

Enter the biblical place of lament - crying out to God because things are not what they ought to be.  

God has made promises to us that we are waiting for Him to fulfill.  Promises like no more crying and no more pain.  And here we are crying and in pain - we can tell Him that we are hurting and it does not make us less faithful.  We can acknowledge our cares while we cast them on Him.  We can give thanks in all circumstances while acknowledging we might want those things to go away.  Jesus did it in Gethsemane.  Paul did it with his thorn.  And we have examples of it in the Psalms and the Prophets.  So let us make use of this category of worship - Lament.  Here are a few tips:

1. Be honest.

2. Be reverent

3. Allow God to be God and acknowledge His character even when you cant see what He is doing!

And while doing those three things - tell God how much pain you are in.  He hears, cares, listens, and already knows.  We do not have to pretend to have it all together and a freedom from suffering is not the mark of spiritual maturity.  In fact, it seems that often spiritual maturity comes as a result of the suffering that we are promised!  

Election Day AKA Psalm 2 Day

 Today in the United States of America is election day.  A day when we all should get out and exercise our civic responsibility to vote and influence the future of our country.  I call it Psalm 2 day.  Why?  Let me share Psalm 2 with you:

"Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?  The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ' Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!' He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.  Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, 'But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.' "  (Psalm 2:1-6, NASB)

It always seems like people panic around election time as if their candidate is the savior of the free world.  Regardless of whom you are voting for, they are not.  God is.  And God laughs when rulers and governments think they can do things apart from the leadership of God Himself. He laughs - He thinks it is funny.  He scoffs at them.  And with a word He can terrify them.  Christians would do well to remember this.  Christians would do well to remember all that God has told us in His word about what is coming and about the return of Christ.  We should be less panicked and much more concerned that Jesus is coming back and our neighbors are dying - even if they have the right political sign in their yard.  Let God handle the rulers put in place.  And remember that if your candidate does not win the vote, God is still on the throne and will be for all eternity.

To God be the glory!