A nod to the month: Knowing Love

For Americans, February is the month of love.  However, in a culture where love seems so quickly labeled and disposed of, I want to dig through the pile of candied hearts and remember what God intended love to be.

1 John 3:16a(NIV) states, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.”

If we want to find out what real love is, we need to look at who Christ is and how He loved.  We need to not only look at His death, which is overwhelming for anyone to think about, but before that, before even His birth as a man.  To begin to understand His love, we need to understand our beginnings, when with mere words, God brought life rushing forth from nothingness.  In this time of humanity’s dawn, it was through Jesus that all things were made (John 1:3).  Imagine that power, that authority, to send whole galaxies spiraling out of the darkness, to light the cradles of stars in the expanse, to send the waters of the earth rushing forth in their millions of gallons, to rear mountains up from the plains with a crack and roar… to weave together the form of man from particles of dust, and with a breath give life through his nostrils. 

Now imagine what it was for him to become a human being.  Imagine lying aside the power to shape the universe and then coming screaming into the world in the cold of the night, into the care of two flawed human beings who did not even have the authority to protect their children from the sword of their government.  Imagine going from the object of worship, to the object of scorn: the questionably conceived child of a teenager from a region of the world that caused others to wonder, “Can anything good come from there?”(John 1:46a)  He would later be called a lunatic, a blasphemer, and even Satan, himself.  Eventually, the very people to whom He had been for centuries promised… would turn Him over to the government they hated to be brutally beaten and hung on a tree to die… a significant act, as in Jewish society a man killed this way was “cursed by God” (Deuteronomy 21:23).

And yet, as Jesus hung dying on the cross, carrying the sins of all mankind personally, alienated from God and tortured physically, Luke records Jesus saying in chapter 23, verse 34, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Love, then… is more than a feeling of passion.  It is treating others better than they deserve.  It is acting lovingly, even when it is not felt.

The worst could be worse...

" And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. " - Romans 8:28(NIV)

Reading this passage, we know that as Christians... we have a pretty sweet gig.  No matter how bad things get, no matter how impossible our lives may seem or how horrible everything around us may appear... the miraculous is moving beneath the surface of things.  God is not stagnant or off somewhere beyond our comprehension, but He is present right in those situations, twisting the work of the devil into an image of beauty, taking evil and forcing it to serve the good of God's people.  It's actually really humbling to thing about, isn't it?  The God of the UNIVERSE, the maker of EVERYTHING, the knower of ALL THINGS... is personally invested in your individual life.  He's looking at that horrible thing coming down the road and making it into something that will make you into someone that blesses everyone around them.

Now... imagine if that wasn't the case.  Stop and think about those horrible situations, the ones you're afraid to face, the ones you can't imagine having to go through again.  Imagine the divorce...the car accident...the broken heart...the shattered dream...the stolen innocence... without God.  Imagine those situations left as they are, untouched by an all-good, all-poweful God whose whole existence is bent on protecting and loving you.  When I look at my own history under those terms, I can't even imagine what I would be like, now.  The change would be so drastic that it's impossible for me to comprehend.  I can tell you right now I wouldn't be married, or have finished college, or have married parents, or be in church work, or...or...

That is what Hell is like.

"They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might"

-1 Thessalonians 1:9(NIV)

Scary thought, huh?  A lot more scary than the "eternal fire" and the little red dude with a pitchfork and mustache.  I don't know about you, but physical agony is a lot less scary than having to go through all the psychological and emotional suffering the world puts us through without God as a filter.

That is not the future you face with Jesus.

Matthew 5:8(NIV) reads:

"Blessed are the pure in heart,

    for they will see God."

When Christ reigns in your life, you are "the pure in heart."  When you are given faith in Christ, all the things that corrupt your heart are GONE.  In a moment, in a flash, they are no more.  All that's left is the pure, unbroken heart that Christ gives you, no matter the mistakes you may regret.

And that means... you will never stand outside the presence of God.  You will never face a time where God is not constantly involved in all that happens to you, changing things to serve your good and the good of al Christians.

You will never be unnoticed.

You will never be unvalued.

You will NEVER be not good enough.

The fullness we hunger for....

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." 

- Matthew 5:6(NIV)

Reading this verse can only be understood in the context of the previous three beattitudes:

1. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:3(NIV)
2. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."- Matthew 5:4(NIV)
3. "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." - Matthew 5:5(NIV)

As we walk through life and see how broken the world is, as we, ourselves, are broken by the cruelties and horrors human beings commit against one another, as we look into our own hearts and see how often we fail to be the good sort of person we would like to be... we recognize that we, and the world, are incapable of creating paradise on earth.  We are entirely unable to intrinsically and permanently change this world... or ourselves.

The word "righteousness" in Matthew 5:6, is not the same kind of understanding of the word "righteousness" that we have in the English language.  The English understanding of this word makes righteousness a quality that we create within ourselves.  I choose to have good moral character.  I choose to do the right thing.  The English understanding is "self-righteousness," where good behavior is entirely dependent on me.  But wait... don't the previous three beattitudes fly in the face of this definition?  They say we, and the world, are entirely corrupt and unable to change things for the better. 

They do indeed, but the Greek understanding of this little, yet significant, word... has a very different implication.  "Righteousness," from a Biblical understanding... has nothing to do with you.  Righteousness is a characteristic which can only describe the total goodness, justice, and mercy that God, Himself, embodies.  It is, in a word, perfection.  To truly be righteous is to stand before this completely perfect being, who is God, and be absolutely blameless.  God would be unable to find a single fault or character flaw in one who was righteous.

Wow... what a daunting prospect.  When I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself, I don't see a person who would withstand that test.  I see a person who consistently fails to treat others with the respect they deserve, to love others as Christ loved them, to the point of death.  I see a person who never lives up to the standards they have set for themselves, no matter how much they desire to.

Yet what does the second half of verse 6 say?  

"They will be filled."  

And Colossians 2:9(NLT) states:

"For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.^"

And Ephesians 3:16-19(NIV) states:

"I pray...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

When we "know this love that surpasses knowledge," which is all that Jesus is and has done... we are filled fully with the righteousness we "hunger and thirst" for.  When God looks at us, He does not see the failings and darkness and filth of our less-than-perfect ways of living... He sees perfection: the perfection purchased by the death and resurrection of Jesus.  It is not something we do... but something that Jesus did.

So, rest in peace... and remember this:

"Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." 

- Ephesians 1:4-5(NLT)

The poor have it all....

In teaching circles, it seems like common knowledge that if you teach something, you learn it much more thoroughly than you ever have before.  I had heard this saying even before I was a church worker, but now that I have spent a few years writing Bible studies and teaching children, youth, and adults... I understand how true this is.  It is especially true of teaching something like the Word of God, which is called "living and active" in Hebrews 4:12(NIV).  You can learn a particular story and passage a dozen times, and still turn around to read it one day and have a whole new understanding of what you read that revolutionizes the way you think or act.  This is not to say the meaning changes, but knowing the words of the Bible is like knowing a person: even if you've known them for your whole life, they can still surprise you.

Recently, I taught a study on the Beatitudes, which are the first part of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," and are recorded in Matthew 5:1-12.  I had read through the Beatitudes probably a million times, had sat through several bible studies on them, and had even written the study that I taught.  Yet, as I discussed the Beatitudes with the youth mentors who would teach the study to their small group of youth, and as I taught it to my youth small group... the significance of this passage overwhelmed me again.

This passage is a description of Christian living, or at least... of what Christian living should look like as we are transformed more and more by the love of Christ and motivated by the Holy Spirit to live out that transformation in the lives of others.  I would love to explore all of them today, but I think over the next few weeks I will explore them in chunks and how I have understood them in my life.

The first Beatitude is:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 5:3(NIV) 

What a contradiction this first verse seems!  The "poor in spirit" receives "the kingdom of heaven"?!  But I think it is no contradiction at all, but fits beautifully with the message of Christ.  Romans 3:23(NIV) states, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  We are all "poor in spirit" because we have all done things for which we are ashamed, and we have all looked at the world and thought "This is wrong."  We know that we are not as we should be, and it is clear every day that the world is not as it should be.  

Yet, in this moment, God does not leave us in the shame of recognizing our own failings or the despair that the world is corrupt and broken.  In the same verse where we are called "poor in spirit," God offers this undeserved gift, "theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  In Luke 17:20-21, we learn the "Kingdom of God" is Jesus himself, for when Jesus is asked "When will the Kingdom of God come?", He replies, "the Kingdom of God is already among you," indicating Himself there speaking with them!  So when we, in our brokenness, are offered the "kingdom of God," we are offered Christ, Himself!  In that moment when we recognize how many mistakes we make and how horrible this world is, how completely contrary everything in life is to an absolutely perfect God... this same perfect God steps in and offers life! 

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." - Jesus (John 10:10b)

What we refuse to believe...

The word "love" appears approximately 551 in the NIV translation of the Bible.  If I look up the word "love" in a Bible search, I find verses like these:

• "In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed.  In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling." - Exodus 15:13(NIV)
• "And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." - Exodus 34:6-7a(NIV)
• "In accordance with your great love, forgive the sin of these people, just as you have pardoned them from the time they left Egypt until now.” - Numbers 14:19(NIV)
• "But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery." - Deuteronomy 7:8(NIV)
• "If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, “Let us follow other gods” (gods you have not known) “and let us worship them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.  The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul." - Deuteronomy 13:1-3(NIV)
• "Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders." - Deuteronomy 33:12b(NIV)
• "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." - 1 Chronicles 16:34(NIV)
• "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation." - Psalm 13:5(NIV)
• "The unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken." - Psalm 21:7b(NIV)
• "Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies." - Psalm 36:5(NIV)
• "For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave." - Psalm 86:13(NIV)
• "Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you." - Isaiah 54:10(NIV)
• "Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail." - Lamentations 3:22(NIV)
• "The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” - Zephaniah 3:17(NIV)
• “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." - John 3:16-17(NIV)
• “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." - John 13:34(NIV)
• "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." -John 15:9(NIV)
•  ^"I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.^{" - John 17:23-24(NIV)}
• ^"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8(NIV)
• "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:35&37-39(NIV)
• "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." - Galatians 2:20(NIV)

There are so many more passages.  Passages that fill me up no matter where I am in my life.  I think you see the point:

GOD LOVES YOU!!!

There is nothing - ABSOLUTELY nothing - that can stop, change, reverse, compromise, undo, damage, destroy, halt, or any other synonym that!  Don't you know that when God was sitting around, doing whatever God did before He created this place, He was fully, completely, intimately, and totally aware of the exact depths of your worst possible thoughts and actions?  Don't you know He saw the lies you would tell, the people you would have sex with, the drugs you would do, the tests you would cheat on, the laws you would break, the love you would deny others, the horrible, corrupt, evil things you would do over and over and over again, even though you knew, deep down, that you shouldn't??  YES!  God SAW those things!  And you know what???

HE STILL CREATED YOU!!!!

JESUS STILL CAME!!!

AND HE STILL DIED!!!

Why?

BECAUSE YOU ARE WORTH IT!

I leave you with one last passage.  One that has meant so much to me.  It is Ephesians 3:16-19(NIV), and my prayer for you today:

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Self Worth....

I'm going to take a brief diversion from my current pattern of blogs to do a specific one.  I often struggle with self worth issues, but what brings me to writing today is the frequent encounters I have had with Christian people struggling with low perceptions of their own self worth.  The issue springs from their perception of what the Christian life should "look like," and their own interpretation that since their lives and choices don't perfectly reflect this idealized image, they must be terrible people of whom God is ashamed.  However, because they don't want people to know they're not perfect, they often hide behind this "perfect image" they create of their lives, never letting people know that they are dying inside.

If you are one of those people who thinks that you have to be this perfect person for God to love you or use your life to help other people... throw that thought right out of your head.  First of all, if you think because you aren't perfect, God is raising the hammer, waiting to crush you or that He doesn't love you, check these examples from the Bible about how you're dead wrong:

1. King David - Had a group of men called his "Mighty Men" that supported him before he was king, when King Saul was trying to kill him.  They were essentially his closest group of friends and body guards.  One of these "Mighty Men" was Uriah.  While Uriah was off fighting a war for David, David slept with and impregnated Uriah's wife, Bathsheba.  To cover it up, David called Uriah home from war so that he would sleep with Bathsheba and cover up that she was unfaithful while he was gone.  Uriah could not bear to enjoy the comforts of wife and home while his men were off fighting, however.  So, David sent him back to the war, carrying a sealed message that told David's general to ensure Uriah died in the war.  Uriah, honorable to the end, never read the message and was killed in the battle when the front line pulled back and left him alone at the front.  Despite this evil behavior, however, God still would say this about David:

• Samuel 13:14 - God called David "a man after his own heart," knowing what he would do with Bathsheba in the future.
• 1 Samuel 7:11a-13 - "'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."
• We see this fulfilled in Jesus, Himself, who was directly descended from King David (Matthew 1:1).  God used an adulterer, murderer, and liar to bring about the salvation of the entire world.

2. The Women of Jesus' Bloodline - Genealogy in Jewish society was always traced through the men, that was why if you didn't know who your father was, you were an outcast in Jewish society.  You essentially had no identity.  However, when Matthew wrote his account of the Gospel, he included five women in the genealogy.  They were so significant that Matthew listed them, even though technically women had no status in Jewish society.  Yet look at the background of these women:

• Tamar - Genesis 38: In Jewish society, if a man died before his wife could give him a son, the next-in-line in the family was supposed to marry her and have a son in the name of the brother who died.  Sounds awful for the woman, but in actuality, this was to her benefit.  If a woman had no sons and no husband, she had no one to take care of her and ensure she survived.  Women couldn't just go out and get a job in Jewish society.  Now, Tamar was married to one of  Judah's sons, and he died.  Then, the next son died, leaving Judah with one son.  Judah was afraid to marry his last son to her, so he sent her away, never intending to allow her to marry and essentially leaving her without a future.  When Judah's wife died later, Judah went on a trip, so Tamar disguised herself and sat on the side of the road he would take.  When he came by, he did not recognize her, thinking she was a prostitute, and wanted to sleep with her, promising to pay her later for it with a young goat.  She made him give her his seal and staff as a guarantee and did the deed.  Later on, when it was discovered she was pregnant, the people wanted to burn her for adultery.  She saved her life by producing the seal and staff of Judah, causing him to say "She is more righteous than I, since I would not give her my son" (verse 26).  In other words, her actions, though scandalous, caused him to keep Jewish law.
• Ruth - Book of Ruth: Ruth was a non-Jewish woman who married a Jewish man that later died.  Her mother-in-law's other son and husband also died, but instead of going back to her homeland, Ruth stayed to take care of her mother-in-law, Naomi.  Every day she would take left-over grain from the field of one of her dead husband's kinsmen, Boaz.  He thought she was beautiful when he saw her, and made sure there was always enough grain left for her to take care of herself and Naomi, and he also ensured she would not be bothered by any of the men that worked the field.  Though Boaz liked her so much, and he was related closely to her dead husband so that he was qualified to marry her, he did not act on anything.  So, with Naomi's encouragement, Ruth cleaned up, dressed up, put on her perfume, and went over to Boaz's after he had a party and went to sleep drunk in the grain barn.  There, she laid down at his feet, and when he awoke and found her there, she told him to cover her with the corner of his blanket, and he asked her to stay until morning.  Now, this would have been absolutely scandalous at the time.  Women were not supposed to talk to men outside their family, much less visit them alone, while they're drunk, and spend the night with them.  It would have been grounds for stoning, except that Boaz protected her identity, and in the end, married her.  She, too, was an ancestor of the savior.
• Rahab - Joshua 2: Rahab was not Jewish and was actually living in Jericho when it was attacked by the Israelites after they left Egypt.  Furthermore, she was a prostitute who owned her own brothel in the city.  In Joshua 2, she sheltered the spies from Israel that had snuck into the city and helped them escape without being discovered by the authorities in Jericho.  While doing this, she told the spies, in verses 9 and 11, "I know that the LORD has given this land to you...  the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below."  Despite all that her life had been about up to that point, faith in the one true God was still placed in her heart, and her and all her family were the only ones spared when the walls of Jericho collapsed and the Israelites overthrew it.  Now, what is even more amazing to understand is we know that as a prostitute, she was no virgin when she came into the faith.  For her occupation, she would have been an outcast in Jewish society.  However, her life before was not taken into account once she joined the Jewish nation.  She was given a new life, and in that new life was married to a Jewish man and became the ancestor of Jesus.

I could go on about Jesus' bloodline, how Bathsheba was also listed, though she cheated on her husband by sleeping with King David while her husband was at war; or how Mary was also listed, though most of her friends and family would have believed her and Joseph had conceived Jesus outside of marriage, for in Jewish society, a Jewish man claimed a child as his own blood if he married a pregnant woman.  I could go on about other chosen servants of God: Samson, a man who visited pagan brothels, married pagan women, and regularly broke Jewish law, though he was the spiritual leader of Israel; Solomon, king of Israel, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, many of whom were pagan, though it was against the direct command of God to marry outside the faith.

The point I'm trying to make is this: God does not call perfect people to serve him.  The Christian life is not defined by perfection.  As Paul says in Romans 7:15&21-23(NIV), "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do... So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members."  In short, the Christian life is defined by struggle with sin.  You go through life in faith, you sin, you are forgiven, you keep walking, make a good decision, turn around and make another bad one, you are forgiven, God picks you up off the ground and gets you moving again.  Repeat.  But there's the catch right there: GOD picks you up; GOD gets you moving again.  What does Paul say after crying about how he cannot do good?  Romans 7:24b-25a(NIV), "Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

YOU have worth, not matter what you've done, no matter how imperfect your life is.  God has written the pages of His faithfulness to His people through the lives of imperfect, corrupt people.  He continues to write that story through YOU.