Tag: Christian Love

October 12, 2023 – Matthew 22 – Love God and Others

It is amazing how we humans like to rank and rate things. If you’re not first your last… We want to have the best products if possible. If not the best, we certainly don’t want the worst.

The Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day were not strangers to the ranking and rating game. They had greater and lesser prophets. They were also interested in ranking the commandments. One day as others were trying to trip Jesus up in something he might say, an expert in the law joined in.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew22:36–40NIV

According to Jesus, the greatest commandment is to love God. Quoting Deuteronomy 6:5, Jesus points us to something very important. God is not interested in us simply keeping rules or the law. God wants us to love him with all our heart, soul, and mind… essentially all that we are.

Next Jesus ranks loving our neighbor the way we would love ourselves as the second greatest commandment. Not just the neighbor that lives next door, but anyone that we may encounter in life as was pointed out in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. We are to love those who God loves (that’s everybody) the way we love ourselves.

These two commandments are so important that Jesus said everything else in scripture hangs on them. That seems to put them far and ahead of the big ten and the hundreds of other commandments in scripture.

If we want to please God, we must love him with all that we are, and love others as much as we love ourselves. Nothing else is more important.

Prayer: Dear loving God, help me to love you and those you love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

February 21 2023 – 1 John 4 – God is Love

If you ever wondered what the essence of our faith is you should read 1 John 4. In it we understand that we are, as God’s children to be loving. We are to love one another. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” 1 John4:7NASB1995  John even goes so far as to say if we don’t love others, we don’t even know God because, God is love.

It is a given that we should love our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have that familial language… we are children of God, thereby brothers and sisters to others who have been born again. Knowing how families work, it is an unspoken norm that we should love one another no matter what.

John shows us how God loves and that is how we should love. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John4:9–11NASB1995

What John is saying is God loves first and so should we. God didn’t wait until we found him and pursued him to love us, he loved us first and so much so that he sent Jesus to pay the price for our sins. It is what we affirm when we celebrate Holy Communion. “Hear the good news: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God’s love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!”1

We are to love God because God is love and God first loved us. We are to love those in the family of God, those who are born again to be children of God, not because we always agree with them or even like them, but because they are our family. We are to love others and not just as a reciprocation of their love, we are to love them even if they don’t love us, because God, our Father, loves first.

Brothers and sisters, our faith is about love because God is love. Let us be like our Father and love others as God has loved us!

Prayer:

God thank you for your love! Help me to love others, even the unlovable. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

1A Service of Word and Table I

February 20 2023 – Luke 8 – Scattering Seed and Conditioning Soils

I am a beekeeper. I like to give my bees something to make honey from, so I have planted Dutch White Clover seeds occasionally. I don’t have an expensive seed drill or even an aerator so I have hand spread the seed. It is hit or miss. There are lots of factors for clover growth. The soil composition is one. Is it too hard for the seeds to get in and germinate? Does it have too much acidity? Is there too much shade on the lawn? Clover seed is not cheap so I don’t put it out every other week.

In Luke 8, Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower. He talks about someone going out and sowing seed. Some seed fell beside the road where it is trampled and birds eat it. Some fell on the rocky places where it springs up quickly but withers because it has no root. Others fell in the thorns and is choked out. Still other seed fell in the good soil where it produced “a crop a hundred times as great.”

The seed is the word of God and the different soils are the hearts of the people who hear it. I invite you to read the parable to hear about the hearts of people and how that affects their receptivity to the word of God. However, I want to think about how the seed was scattered. If I were a farmer listening to this parable I would think, who scatters seed on the roadside, the rocky soil, and in thorns? It must be very cheap seed to scatter it in those places.

The way the seed is scattered is often overlooked to talk about the soil conditions, or rather, the conditions of the hearts of people. How shocking to farmers or people who buy seed to think of sowing so broadly that you are casting seed even in places that you have little expectation of harvesting a crop. However, that is exactly how God operates in spreading his word. He makes no distinction in where the word of God is shared. He doesn’t just pour his word on good people, or people who go to church. He scatters his word everywhere, on the good and the bad.

He does this because God is patient and wants all people to be saved. “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter3:9NIV

There are ways to condition soils to make them more receptive to the seed sown. We can fertilize, balance the pH, remove thorns, weeds and rocks, and we can till the soil to make it more hospitable to seed sown. We can also, through our living witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, condition the hearts of people. By our genuine love and care for others, we can change the condition of their hearts whereby they are more receptive to the word of God. Heart conditioning doesn’t happen just because we bombard people with the word of God. It happens as we intentionally care for, and love others.

God does not discriminate in who should hear the word of God. The Bible is the most widely translated book in the world. He spreads his word to the good people and the sinners alike. We can help in producing a bountiful harvest to the word by scattering abundantly and broadly, and by conditioning the hearts of all people by loving others as we love ourselves.

Prayer:

Lord thank you for planting your word in my heart and changing my life! Help me to share your word with everyone and help me to genuinely love others so their hearts will be receptive to your word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

February 5 2023 – James 1 – Slow to Speak

In the Epistle of James we get some helpful advice for our world today. This is one of the most divisive times in my life. We are politically divided. We are divided on the pandemic and what we should do to stay safe. In my denomination, we are also going through a time of separation.

It seems like you can’t hardly have a conversation these days without triggering someone. I mean you say a word or phrase and they get all bristled up. Immediately because of this word or phrase, they assume they know all of your political and religious beliefs. You are relegated to the lowest form of humanity possible. Your motivation… pure evil.

In James 1 we are given advice that the world, and especially the church, needs to embrace. “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” James1:19–20NIV 

We should be eager to listen to others, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we listen, we should, as Stephen Covey suggested in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, listen to understand and not to respond. Half the time these days, we are listening and formulating our argument to whatever we heard that triggered us.

We should ask questions and seek clarity about what is being said if we don’t understand. Then after understanding what is being said we should speak. We are also encouraged to be slow to anger. It takes practice, but if we can get past the conditioning to see conversations with those we disagree with as a conflict to be won, we will benefit ourselves, our churches, our country and even the world.

If we want to be pleasing in righteousness to God, we have to listen, understand, and learn how not to be triggered. We should seek to hear one another in love. It is hard to view the people you love as pure evil no matter how much you disagree with them.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for the community of people around me. Help me to love them as you love me. Help me to listen, understand, and speak with kindness and compassion. Lord help me keep my temper in check in conversations and not get triggered by what others say. Amen.

December 26, 2022 – Philippians 2 – Christian Humility

Exodus 36, John 17, Philippians 2

The Apostle Paul spends a lot of ink trying to teach people to not be proud. Pride causes lots of problems. If I think I am superior to someone in some way or another, I may not value what they have to say. I may think I am better than they are and therefore, I deserve my way about this or that.

Paul seems like a good example of someone who exemplifies humility. He had all kinds of training. He was well traveled. He had the Damascus road encounter with Christ. If anybody could have boasted, Paul could have. He could have used himself as the example of Christian humility. However, he chose an even greater example.

He tells the Philippians, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians2:5–8NIV

Whatever your qualifications are… whoever you think you may be… in your relationships with others be like Jesus. Serve others in Christian love. Christian humility will eliminate many unnecessary problems and confrontations.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for emptying yourself, being born a man, and serving us with your life. Thank you for going to the cross for my sins. Help me to engage others in Christian humility. Amen.

December 23, 2022 – John 15 – Remain in My Love

Exodus 34, John 15, Ephesians 5

In John 15, we learn that we are a part of Christ, and from him we have life, and in him we grow. He uses the analogy of a vine and branches. He is the vine and we are the branches. We cannot do anything for God in and of ourselves. We have to be a part of Christ to do that. When we try to do anything apart from Christ, we begin to die spiritually.

Think of it this way: you cannot cherish sin and try to serve God. You will only be going through the motions for God. Inside you will be spiritually withering, to the death of your soul if you persist. “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” John15:6NIV

Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” John15:9–10NIV  We have to be intentional about remaining in Christ’s love. That means we cherish our relationship with him. We seek Christ daily in Scripture, in prayer, and in conversation with other believers. We learn his will in this seeking. We submit our lives to his will.

When we faithfully follow Christ, loving him as he loves us, we will be fruitful for God. If we think we are doing anything for God apart from Christ, we are only fooling ourselves. We are merely being religious. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John15:5NIV

Remain in Christ’s love. Pursue your relationship with him daily.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for your great love for me. While I was dead in my sins, you loved me, and died for me. Help me to never cherish any sin over you. Help me to grow in my love for you and your great love for me. Amen.