unlovable

Love in General

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“This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves” (1 John 3:16-20).

I heard something today in a sermon that struck home. The pastor, Aaron Bryant, basically said that many of us are so concerned about loving people that we neglect to love the person in front of us at any given moment. We can get so caught up in the theoretical idea of love in a general sense that we fail to love our neighbor in a very practical sense.

It’s one thing to talk of loving people, but quite another to love that difficult co-worker or that annoying neighbor. Maybe it’s a brother or sister that you don’t get along with and haven’t spoken to for weeks or months.

God does have a sense of humor. When you ask God for patience, He will send you to a situation or a person who will try what little patience you have. When you pray for someone to love, often He confronts you with someone who while not completely unlovable is far from easy to love.

Remember in those times that you were once that unlovable person. In loving you, God made you lovable. Maybe when you love someone else with that kind of love, they will become lovable as well. The most effective testimony is loving people well, especially those of the faith. The calling card of the early Church was how well they loved each other.

How can you love not just in general but specifically and practically? It starts with making time for that person. Making a phone call, sending a text, paying a visit, meeting that person for coffee, or making them feel welcome when they move into your neighborhood.

There’s a word for people who claim to love God but don’t love His people– hypocrites. If you say one thing and live another, you automatically invalidate your message.

As the Apostle John said, let’s love not just in word or speech or in theory but in deed and truth.

 

 

Community of Faith

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Sometimes, it’s easy to believe. Everything is going your way and you seemingly are getting all the breaks.

Sometimes, it’s not so easy. Your prayers bounce back from the ceiling and you can’t hear God as well as before, but you keep praying and trusting, though with little seeds of doubt creeping in.

Sometimes, you don’t have it in you anymore to pray or believe for yourself.

That’s where community comes in. That’s what I believe we’re called to do in 2015.

Community means that I believe for you when you can’t believe for yourself when it comes to the promises of God. It means that I pray on your behalf claiming your promises for you when you can’t get the words to come out.

On occasion, I find it easier to visualize the person I’m praying for. I picture him (or her) in a small chapel, walking down the center aisle. I picture Jesus at the end of that aisle. I see myself as guiding that person toward Jesus and watching as He wraps His arms around the person for whom I’m praying.

Community means that we encourage each other. It also means we don’t accept easy answers, but push beyond the “I’m fine”s to get to the truth. It means that every now and then we speak the hard truth, but speak it in love, when we see the other headed down a harmful path.

Community means that we are honest, vulnerable, and transparent as close to 100% of the time as our imperfections will allow. It means that we choose to love the unlovable in our midst, remembering that we too were at one point unlovable before Christ made us loveable.

That’s what the 1st century world saw in the early Christians that won them over. That’s what God used to turn the world upside down (or more accurately, right-side up again) and transform a small band of believers into His Church.

That’s what the world around us needs to see more than ever right now and in 2015.

 

Amour: How Much Do You Love Me?

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image

I have now seen 11 out of the 12 nominees for the Best Picture Academy Award from last year’s Oscars. Only one more to go!

I watched Amour, a very touching movie about an elderly man taking care of his wife after she’s had two strokes. I say the film was touching; it was also unflinching and hard to watch at times.

Love is like that. It’s not always the storybook ending and happily ever afters. Sometimes, there are parts you wish you could leave out. Sometimes, “I do” means changing diapers and having to feed your loved one as if he or she were an infant again.

Love is hard. When the one you love can no longer return that love, when they no longer have the means of communicating their love back to you, what do you do?

God calls us to love the unlovable as He first loved us when we were unlovable. Sometimes, I can still be unlovable; you can, too. But God still chooses to love us anyway.

Did you get that?

At every moment, God is choosing to love you and to love me, regardless of whether you or I have shown that we deserve such love.

The truth is that nobody deserves God’s love, but we all need it and we can have it if we will only open our clenched fists to receive that waiting love. And God is such a patient Suitor.

Who will you choose to love who doesn’t deserve it? Who will you choose to forgive who deserves to be cut off instead? Who will you give a second chance to who never deserved the first?

One day, the someone needing love and forgiveness and a second chance will be you. It will be me. Our humanity means we will fall, we will fail, we will make a mess of things and people and relationships.

Yep. All that from watching one movie. With subtitles, no less.

I needed the reminder because I have been guilty of casting stones instead of extending grace. You have, too. We’ve all been harsh and judgmental and unforgiving to those who needed mercy and grace and forgiveness.

The question is not if you’ve loved poorly in the past but if you will choose to love well on this day that God has given you. Will you?

Let your light shine

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lighthouses

“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16, NASB).”

I find it very interesting that Jesus does not say “Do your good works, so that your light may shine and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” The command is not do good works, but let your light shine. The good works come out of the light shining and are God at work in and through your surrendered heart and willing spirit. As you are being transformed into the image of Christ, that light shines more and more brightly. And one of the main results of our being transformed is that we become more compassionate and are able to love the unlovely and unlovable.

Too many times, all our good activities and events and programs get in the way of our being lights in the world. We are too busy doing things for God that we neglect to be God’s people that show the world what He is like. If all they see is me running around, fatigued and miserable from all my activities for God, they will have missed God. Don’t get me wrong. These activities are good, but the focus is being the Light of Christ wherever we are and whatever we are doing.
The reward is the glory of God given to God. It is not awards or commendations or praise for me. If I shine, the world sees Jesus, not me. People sees God as He truly is and are drawn to that. Lord, help me to not be another busybody in your Kingdom, but a Light that shines in the dark that the world and the devil will never be able to put out.

My prayer is that we get to the end of our lives and hear Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You took your light into the dark places few others were willing to go and loved those few others were willing to love and in reaching to the least of these, your light shone brightest.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.