love

God’s Strong Love

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I found this on Pinterest and it spoke volumes to me. It’s amazing how C. S. Lewis can take the most complex and profound themes and break them down into something even I can understand.

This says it all. Our love is frail, but God’s love is strong. Our love fails, but God’s love lasts forever. We let each other down regularly, but God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

We spend our time chasing after broken cisterns and useless idols, but God’s love is the overflowing and never-ending well that never runs dry.

Maybe one day we’ll finally understand just how deep and wide and long and high that love goes and then we can finally be content in it.

 

Two Kinds of Love

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“There are two kinds of love: we love wise and kind and beautiful people because we need them, but we love (or try to love) stupid and disagreeable people because they need us. This second kind is the more divine because that is how God loves us: not because we are lovable but because He is love, not because He needs to receive but He delights to give” (C. S. Lewis).

This is why I’m not a fan of karma. Karma says that you get what’s coming to you. That’s it. No discussion. Side note: I notice that a lot of people are wishing karma on everybody else but want and expect grace for themselves when they screw up. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.

But what if I don’t want what’s coming to me? What if I know that at times I’ve been stupid and disagreeable?

The secret is to treat others like you yourself want to be treated? The key is to love others like God has loved you.

Of course, none of us ever come close to that perfect standard of God’s love. Most of the time, we do good to love those who love us. We do less well with those who annoy us.

Still, the more God’s love has its way in us, the more we are able to love those who can’t reciprocate that love, who can’t repay our kindnesses. The more we become like Jesus the more we love those disagreeable people (sometimes without even realizing it).

It all starts when you really and truly believe that God loves you as you are and not as you should be. God loves you no matter what. You can’t do anything to make Him love you more and you certainly can’t do anything that will cause Him to love you less.

The more you believe that, the more your love looks like His.

 

Praying for Orlando

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I, like so many of you, was horrified by what I saw on my social media feed. a gunman murdered 50 people in a night club early this morning.

Regardless of your stance on the LBGTQ community, we should all mourn the devastating loss of life. No one should celebrate when someone else dies. Ever.

Remember, each one of these victims was someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister,  aunt or uncle. More than that, each was an individual created in the image of God and therefore possessing inherent value. Each was someone Jesus willingly went to the cross and died for.

I’m praying for the families of these victims tonight. I’m praying that God can take what was meant for pure evil and turn it into something good. I know that in God’s plan, tragedy and loss will not have the last word. God’s story never ends with ashes.

I read a post that said that those that died got what they deserved because of their lifestyles. All I know is that I wouldn’t want to get what I deserve based on some of the choices I’ve made in the past. I don’t want karma. I want and desperately need grace.

Hatred cannot overcome hatred. Only love can do that. Only the love of God as expressed in the person of Jesus can do that. Only a kind of love that was willing to lay down its life for enemies can do that.

In response to so much senseless tragedy and horror, I say, “Come, Lord Jesus, come. Only You have the power to set things right again and to wipe away the tears from every eye and to vanquish evil and hate and the lies once and for all. Only you can make a happy ending out of so much sadness. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

 

My Plan for 2016– The Saga Continues

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I managed to make it to another of Brentwood Baptist’s campuses today. Originally, I had planned to go to The Church at West Franklin today and then hit up The Church at Woodbine in May. Plans change.

I found out last night that a friend of mine was playing in the worship band for Woodbine, so I went there. The newly revised and updated plan is to visit West Franklin on May 8, God willing.

That was the main focus on the verses that Doug Jones preached from. The gist of the passage from James 4 is this: don’t make your plans and assume that God will automatically bless them. Instead, you and I need to make plans with the added tag of “God willing.”

You aren’t promised next year or next month or even next week. In fact, no one is promised a tomorrow. Every day you and I wake up is a gift from God. Every day we survive is only due to the grace and mercy of God.

Still, I’m thankful I chose this day to visit Woodbine. I got to see the beautiful old church building that has been revitalized and re-energized with new lifeblood. I got to see a visiting middle school choir from Atlanta that plans to stay the week and help out The Church at Woodbine and the surrounding community.

Afterward, I hit up a few thrift stores that I hadn’t been to in a while. I came up with a few finds, including one that may or may not be worthy of Antiques Roadshow. More on that later.

I’m grateful for The Church at Woodbine and for Doug Jones for a community that reaches out to their neighborhood with both love and truth. You need both to see lives change. Too often (especially in this current culture) the church has shied away from convictions under the guise of acceptance and ended up offering cheap grace that comes without repentance or transformation and with little impact on the community. But that’s another topic for another blog.

I’ll give you a full report on The Church at West Franklin two weeks from now.

 

 

The Woman at the Well

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“Drink this water, and your thirst is quenched only for a moment. You must return to this well again and again. I offer water that will become a wellspring within you that gives life throughout eternity. You will never be thirsty again” (John 4:13-14, The Voice).

It seems to me that there are presently two popular schools of thought when it comes to those who err. One school says that you’re a rotten, filthy, dirty sinner who deserves whatever comes your way. The other says in essence, “I’m okay; you’re okay.”

When I think about the woman at the well in John 4, I think she might bristle at both. She knew she’d messed up, but she was probably hoping from a little more sympathy plus a shot at redemption. As for the “I’m okay, you’re okay” way of thinking, she’d probably point out the fact that she came to draw water during the hottest part of the day to plainly state that she was not okay.

I heard a sermon today where the pastor said Jesus showed both compassion and conviction toward the woman.

He showed compassion in that He went out of His way to speak to the woman and actually engage her in conversation that was more than just about the weather.

He also showed conviction when He wouldn’t let her evade His questions and steer the conversation away from the uncomfortable. While He showed love toward the woman, that love didn’t include enabling her in behavior that wasn’t God’s best for her.

I found that quite convicting. Who will I go out of my way to speak to this week? Who will I show love toward (and not just the warm fuzzy kind, but the kind that is willing to ask the hard questions)?

As for me, I’m thankful that Jesus was willing to love me where He found me and accept me as I was. I’m equally grateful that His love refused to let me stay in that place.

I’m thankful as usual for a pastor in Aaron Bryant who doesn’t always tell me what I want to hear, but will always share what I need to hear, especially on my birthday.

 

Mondays Are Rude

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“Father, out of Your honorable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Anointed One will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of the Anointed is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. God, may Your fullness flood through their entire beings” (Ephesians 3:16-19, The Voice).

Mondays are just rude. They come barging in at some ungodly hour of the morning, interrupting your nice, relaxing weekend, making all sorts of demands, sucker-punching you in the face, forcing you to interact with life before you’ve even had your first cup of coffee. Of all the nerve.

Mondays are typically the days when your passwords suddenly don’t work, you spill that beloved cup of coffee on all your papers, and your inbox blows up.

Sometimes, it can feel like Monday can last a lot longer than 24 hours. It can seem to go on for days, weeks, and even months. You don’t feel adequate to handle all that Monday brings.

Relax. Remember this.

God doesn’t just give you enough grace and mercy to get by. He doesn’t just give you enough love to sustain you until Tuesday mercifully arrives. He doesn’t dole out peace with stingy fingers and a dour face.

Your cup runneth over with God’s provisions. You don’t just get enough. You get much,much more.

You get God. Not just what’s leftover when everybody else has gotten their share. You get all of God.

You get so much grace, mercy, love, and peace that it’s like trying to catch the ocean in a thimble (with thanks to Mike Glenn for that image). There’s so much that it overflows your capacity to receive and pours out on those around you, those in the places where you live and work and play.

Honestly, all Mondays come to an end. They seem to last forever, but they’re just 24 hours, like the other six days in the week.

All of God’s grace and mercy and love and peace will never end. Long after Monday is over, those will still be with you. God will still be with you.

And there’s always more refills of coffee.

 

Costly Love

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“Jesus: Dear woman, where is everyone? Are we alone? Did no one step forward to condemn you?

Woman Caught in Adultery: Lord, no one has condemned me.

Jesus: Well, I do not condemn you either; all I ask is that you go and from now on avoid the sins that plague you” (John 8:10-11).

I’ve learned over the years that any kind of love, romantic or not, is costly. You have to give of yourself for love to work, to be real and true love.

The best kind of love, God’s love, is the kind that reaches out to the unloveable. In case you were wondering, that was both you and me once.

There are some people in your life, in my life, who will be very difficult to love. It will cost you something, maybe a lot, to love that person. It will require forgiveness and letting go of a lot of hurt and anger.

Maybe it will help you to remember that it cost God everything to love you. It cost a cross for God to demonstrate that love to you and me.

I was sitting in the back of The Church at Avenue South, where I normally sit when I am the designated graphics person who puts up the worship song lyrics and sermon text on the big screens.

I was thinking of how much I really do need to forgive because I know that there have been (and will continue to be) many cases where I will need forgiveness for myself. I, like so many of you, have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth and say stupid stuff. I have a tendency to be forgetful and selfish and lots of other things (that I’m sure you’ve been at some point in your life as well).

I continue to be thankful for Aaron Bryant for being a faithful messenger of God’s Word to God’s people. His honesty and transparency are always refreshing and inspiring. Thanks, Aaron, for always being a good and faithful servant of Jesus.

What Love Is

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“Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairy tale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way

But now it’s just another show
You leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away

I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all” (Joni Mitchell)

It’s Valentines Day, a. k. a. Single Awareness Day. It’s great for those who are in relationships (or who still have great hopes of relationships). For those who are perpetually single who spend way too much time with their cats? Not so much.

Still, I’ve been around enough to know what real love is and is not. So I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on the matter.

Love is not a feeling. Well, it is, but it’s so much more than that. I heard a pastor today say that love involves the head, the heart, and the hands. Love is primarily a choice, an act of the will– that’s the head. It’s also emotions– that’s the heart. It always leads to acts of selflessness– that’s the hands.

Love is not just romantic. There’s brotherly love and comfort love and– best of all– that unconditional love that always starts and ends with God.

If I say I love someone, that means more than a warm fuzzy feeling or a Hallmark sentiment. It is a decision to place that person’s welfare above my own, to do everything in my power to help that person realize all their potential and help them to become everything God created them to be.

That’s love.

If you want to define love, you begin and end with God’s ultimate expression of Himself in the person of Jesus. He gave up absolutely everything for you and me. His sacrifice forever set the tone of what true love should look like.

I believe love isn’t Romeo and Juliet dying for passion, but the old couple down the street growing old together. it’s the man with arthritis painting the toenails of his wife who has Alzheimer’s and can’t begin to repay him, much less express thanks for what he’s done.

Love is always sacrifice. Ultimately, love means you give without expecting anything in return. The final word on love is Jesus dying on a cross for people who would ultimately reject His sacrifice and many more who accept it and then take it for granted. Yet, that love perseveres.

That’s love. I don’t completely understand all of it, but I know that I can only love someone else if God first loved me and His love in me flows out to the other person.

I definitely know I want more of it.

 

 

Words That Create (More Goodness from Henri Nouwen)

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“Words, words, words. Our society is full of words: on billboards, on television screens, in newspapers and books. Words whispered, shouted, and sung. Words that move, dance, and change in size and color. Words that say, ‘Taste me, smell me, eat me, drink me, sleep with me,’ but most of all, ‘buy me.’ With so many words around us, we quickly say: ‘Well, they’re just words.’ Thus, words have lost much of their power.

Still, the word has the power to create. When God speaks, God creates. When God says, ‘Let there be light’ (Genesis 1:3), light is. God speaks light. For God, speaking and creating are the same. It is this creative power of the word we need to reclaim. What we say is very important. When we say, ‘I love you,’ and say it from the heart, we can give another person new life, new hope, new courage. When we say, ‘I hate you,’ we can destroy another person. Let’s watch our words” (Henri Nouwen).

Choose your words carefully. Speak life and not death. Speak hope and not despair.

Even your lack of words can have tremendous power. Your choosing to ignore someone sends a more powerful message than any words of hate ever could.

So choose words that head and not harm. Choose words that will build up and not tear down.

That’s all I have on this Thursday evening in February.

 

Held

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Tonight at Kairos, Mike Glenn spoke from John 10:10 about how while the thief came to steal and kill and destroy, Jesus came that we might have life to the fullest. It was another in a long line of great sermons from Uncle Mikey, but that’s not what I’m writing about.

My mind took a tangent during the sermon, as those with ADD can testify happens frequently, and here’s where my thoughts took me.

Sometimes, it’s all you can do to put one foot in front of the other. Even breathing in and out is a tremendous effort of the will. You feel like your life is about to completely fall apart at any minute and your kingdoms will come crashing down.

Know in those moments that it is Jesus holding you together and you are safe.

Sometimes, you feel great. It’s one of those days where the stars align and everything falls into place and all your traffic lights are green. You feel almost invincible, like anything and everything is possible.

Know that even then your world is secure only because it is still Jesus holding you and your world together.

The same Word that spoke the world into being holds it all together. The same Jesus that holds the world in place has your life in His hands. You’ve never been more safe than when it’s Him holding your universe in orbit, keeping you at every moment from spinning completely out of control.

For some of you, that’s a nice sentiment. For others, it may be a much-needed reminder in a stormy season of your life.

As for Mike’s sermon, the gist is that the world around you lies to you about who you are and what you need to be happy and have a good life. Jesus is the only one who delivers on His promise of the good life. What He offers is more than just a good life, but life abundant, where you live out of the overflow of love and mercy, where you are drowning in the love of God, where all that peace can’t help but flow out to those around you.

See? I paid attention. Mostly.