The Original Premise

On March 10, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 103: 8

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

This is a song written by David. David was (and is) a friend of God. He walked and talked with God and because of that he knew Him better than most people. David certainly put God to the test but he also learned to trust God for his every need. The importance of this is that we can feel assured that David is a very good candidate to speak about the nature of God. He experienced God’s forgiveness even before Jesus paid for the sin of the world. He witnessed God’s strength and power. When it comes to describing God, though, David leads off with compassion. Jesus was compassionate. There are no less than thirteen places in the gospels where Jesus either teaches about compassion or is moved by it.

What does this really mean to our lives though? The bottom line is that God is love. His way of interacting with the world and with each of us is through love. It’s who He is. As you listen to church people you sometimes hear discussion of a wrathful God or a vengeful God. However, when He is discussed by the people that have known Him best, like Jesus and David, He is always described in terms of love. That is God’s essential nature. He abounds in lovingkindness and is slow to anger. What we sometimes do, though, is to super-impose our scar tissue onto Him. When we believe ourselves to be vile creatures then we create an image of God that is angry and prosecutorial. In contrast, when we are able to look at God outside of our own filters and lenses then we see Him as He is, loving and kind. And believe me, when a person begins to see the Lord, our God and Father, by His true nature, all things in that person’s life change. A critical nature can change in a moment. A harsh person may put on the robes of graciousness. One who is selfish and self-centered can at once become a person who puts the needs of others first. 

This is our first and foremost meditation, that we ruminate on the goodness and kindness of God; our prayer – that we may know the love of God. This is the first issue. Once we come to an understanding in our hearts, rather than our minds, that God not only is love but that He loves us individually, then truly all things do become possible.  One can never understand the Bible if they do not first understand the original premise of the book – that God is love. It is, therefore, imperative that the Bible teachers to whom you subscribe have an integrated understanding of this first principle.  If they do not, their teaching will be skewed.

Grab this concept with both hands. Make it your own.  It is the only rightful foundation for a relationship with the Father.  Anything else will cause you to misfire. Our God is love and it is with love that He communes with us. I pray, let His love saturate your being, may it be absorbed by every cell of your body.  Amen.

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And the Victor is…?

On February 9, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 John 4: 18

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 

When we receive a full revelation of love we will no longer have fear. We will also find that anger, resentment and other powerful negative emotions disappear because the truth is that those negative emotions are based in fear. We are afraid of losing face, afraid of someone taking advantage of us and so on but when love becomes perfected in us, we will have no consideration for those things. Trust will prevail, an unyielding trust in God’s willingness and ability to take care of us.

We often find it difficult to live in this unbridled trust. Too many of us hear judgment and recrimination in our imaginations of facing the Lord but that is only because our revelation is still being exposed. We fear punishment for our shortcomings because we have not fully embraced the truth of who God is and what Jesus has done for us. Perfect love casts out fear because when we allow that perfect one to explode within us then we see only grace and beauty. Even when we botch things, His face shines on us as a proud parent who thinks we are awesome despite our mistakes. He takes us gently in His hands to teach us so that we don’t err again but this isn’t out of anger but rather out of love. He wants to save us from making the same mistakes over and over again. Then as we learn to trust Him we get better at hearing His instruction before we act and then we don’t have to make as many mistakes in the first place. He leads us so that we place our feet on the right path rather than rambling around in the brambles.

We need not fear punishment. We need fear no thing because our God is not a God of fear. The author of fear lives in hell and he is a defeated foe. All fear belongs to him but Jesus has already cleaned his clock so we need not have any part of him, including his infamous weapon of fear. Love conquers fear. Always has, always will. That is what today’s verse is really saying. With God alive inside of us we do not have to endure the enemy’s tortures. So, focus on the love. Meditate on love. Look up love scriptures. You will find that love is your strength and the mightiest weapon of all.

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Empowered To Love

On February 6, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 John 4: 19

We love because He first loved us.

Do you ever wonder why more of us Christians don’t exhibit the kind of love that we read about in the Bible? It is not because we are bad people. There are people who truly love God and who are trying to live the life that they think God has called them to and yet they remain judgmental, critical and don’t really express love … and, to some degree, this describes most of us. Why do we find it so difficult to live in love and to accept one another in the spirit of Christ within us?

The answer is actually pretty simple. We have not yet realized His great love for us. I am an observer of people and I and a seeker of truth and for many years I have watched Christians and tried to figure out why there is so much disparity in our Christian experience. God loves us all the same, doesn’t He? Christ died for each one of us as if we were the only person in the world. So why do some people have a closer relationship with Him than others? Why do some exhibit so much more of His grace than do others? The answer seems to be that some have a much fuller revelation of His love for them. When you embrace that kind of love, then everything becomes safe. You no longer have to be guarded. God has validated you and spoken into your heart, “I love you just as you are and you are beautiful in my sight.”

You see, I think far too many of us have our eyes on ourselves instead of on Him. We look in the mirror and see all of our faults and mistakes. If we could, instead, turn our eyes upon Him and focus on how much He loves us our lives would be transformed. When a person discovers that God loves them through and through with a love that is beyond human comprehension then we begin to relax and receive the grace that He has afforded us. We no longer have to prove ourselves. We no longer have to promote and elevate ourselves. We can actually enter into a childlike acceptance of His love and then of ourselves. When you believe, truly believe that God loves you then it is easy to devote yourself to Him and to a relationship with Him. When you do so, then He finally is able to release Himself to you. You become a receiver. The next thing that happens is that you become gracious and kind to others. No longer do you have to scrap for respect and honor; God the Father pours it out on you. You become a giver of the grace that He shows you. I’m telling you, those who are immersed in and persuaded of God’s abounding love towards them are able to give from the depths of their heart. As a matter of fact, they pour themselves out like water. They amaze me in their kindness and oh, I pray that more of us can come to a full realization of the love of God.

No matter how many times I tell you that Jesus would have gone to the cross even if you were the only person on earth; no matter how many times any of us are told of the great love the Father has for us, it is all an insubstantial drop in the bucket compared to His great love. Only when we encounter the Father personally and allow Him to minister that message directly to our hearts will we come to understand the depth and breadth of His devotion to us. The good news is that we can be facilitators of such a revelation. God is awaiting us right now. Any moment that we turn open hearts and upturned faces to Him He greets us with outstretched arms. The power is in our hands. We can know the love of God but we must initiate that encounter. We must open the door and let Him in. He will never invade your space. His covenant is too important. He will not violate our free will, so He is waiting for us to call to Him. Just simply tell Him that you want Him to reveal the depth of His love for you and then let your heart be open to His ministrations. He will fill us all. This I know. There is nothing more sure than God’s great love towards us and there is nothing more predictable than that few of us have fully embraced this revelation. Let’s all go into the deep water and allow Dad to fill us to overflowing with His goodness and His love. Knowing that God loves us enables us to love others and that is something we can all live with.

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Murderers We?

On February 5, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 John 3: 15 – 17

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

Tighten your seatbelt. The apostle John is going to take us on quite a ride today. He is teaching on love. He starts by convicting a good number of us as murderers. And no murderer, he tells us, will inherit eternal life. The life of the eternal one does not abide in us if we hate anyone because the eternal one is love. It is logical but what a revelation. Then he contrasts Jesus with those who hate in a demonstration of how love behaves. Hate kills but love lays down its life for the other. And, as if that isn’t strong enough, John goes on to say that we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren too.

If eternal life is living in me then love is abiding in me and love lays down its life for another. The eternal life in me necessarily means that even though I lay down my life, I will yet live. So, there is more here than mere mortality. There is more to this than laying down my mortal life. Let me put it in Paul’s kind of phraseology. If I go to war for my countrymen and lay down my life but have not love, then I am nothing and useless. So what is going on here? It is the love in my heart that is important not my acts of martyrdom. I could martyr myself in my family situation continually from some need to feel victimized rather than out of love. Then my actions, rather than being lovely, are repugnant. Still, there is more here because we still do not reach the difference between laying down our mortal life like Jesus did and laying down our everyday life, which he also did. You see, the laying down of one’s life is not measured in heartbeats and breath alone. There are people, you can think of some, who lay down their lives daily for the brethren, for you and me. You may have some in your own family who consistently put aside their wants, desires and plans in order to meet the needs of others. And I do not refer to people who do this in a dysfunctional, unhealthy way. We are talking here about people who have a revelation of God within them and seek to live out of his will, his love and his power. These are the true children of God. You might be one of these.

Then there are the rest of us and John addresses us in the next verse. Verse 17 says that even though we have the worlds goods we don’t part with a thing even when we have the opportunity to bless others. I heard a minister say one time that she has set a minimum tip amount. No matter how lousy the service nor how inexpensive the meal, she tips well. Now, why would she do that? She has a revelation of the love of God. She is seeking to bless people, not punish them. Your message will preach much louder from a position of love and grace than it will out of selfishness or recrimination. I had a problem right here and I will admit it. I thought a tip was a reward for having given exemplary service. This minister, though, sees it as an opportunity to bless someone. Which of us is closer to God’s heart?

But here is the thing that really amazes me about today’s passage.   John begins by declaring that people with hate in their hearts are murderers and then ends talking about giving. What is going on here? Has John just linked the love of God and His living in us with us being generous givers? I will let you answer that for yourself but I certainly am having a moment of pause (selah). I kind of want to run out and give something away. The church has gone from every one selling their possessions and meeting each other’s needs (see Acts 4) to a group of tight fisted, fear controlled counterfeits. I don’t want to be that way. I want Acts 4 kinds of moves of God so I think that must mean that I need to be an Acts 4 kind of Christian. Where has our charity gone? Why are we no longer generous? To where has our love flown?

The only thing I know to do is to get on our faces before God and ask him. He must reveal to each of us the condition of our hearts and how we can fill our proper place in Him. The one thing I am absolutely sure of is that His answer will involve love and generosity. Will we hang onto our worldly possessions and add annually to our trove at the cost of our souls? I don’t think so. I think we only need see the truth and we will all respond appropriately. And I believe that John has shown us truth.

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Divine Power

On February 4, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 Corinthians 13: 2        Amplified Bible

And if I have prophetic powers (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), and understand all the secret truths and mysteries and possess all knowledge, and if I have [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but have not love (God’s love in me) I am nothing (a useless nobody).

Here is Paul’s understanding of the love commandment. Now I would have thought that operating in the prophetic gifts, having faith that moves mountains, and having all knowledge would be pretty good evidence that one is a foremost disciple of Christ. Many people have pursued the power and the gifts of God but God would rather we pursue His heart. He says, pursue Me and the power will come. So we each have to set our hearts to seek God with all that we are. When we seek God we will find love because He is love. Paul says that without love we are useless nobodies. Wow! That is strong language Paul! But then again, what would you say that we are without love. Again, God is love so if we are without love then we are without God. The measure of cooperation we have with God is revealed in the measure of love we exhibit. So people can know the condition of our hearts and if those hearts really are right with God by the love we express externally.

God’s love has a purpose in the earth. It is to call all people unto Himself. He does this by extending grace and mercy and by meeting the needs of His children. And He uses us, His disciples (?) to accomplish both of these. God blesses me abundantly and then I get to be his hands in the earth to meet the needs of others. He uses us to dispense grace, to show mercy. In truth, love is the real power of God. You’ve heard it said, “Love is the most powerful force in the universe.” It is true. It was love that conquered hell and the grave. It was love that gained the keys and set every captive free. Without love, Jesus would have stayed in the ground. Do you see that? There is nothing more powerful so if we really want to have the power of God flowing through our lives then we need to get a potent revelation of love. 

All we need to do is open our hearts to our beloved Father. When we open our hearts we experience the two way flow that really is our calling in the earth. God fills our hearts with himself and then out from us flows the living river of His grace. We will naturally want to bless others and show kindness of God. I understand that many of us are afraid to open our hearts for fear of getting hurt but we must learn to trust Him, even with our hearts. He has power that He wants to fill you with but He fills the heart. If you will let Him fill you there will be plenty of expression of His power flowing from you. Look at the life of Peter, John or Paul and see what love can do.

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Christ’s Disciple

On February 3, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 13: 34 – 35

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

This is a familiar bit of scripture. It is called the new commandment, the one commandment, or the love commandment. It is another thing too. It is the entire discipleship class. Or let us say it is the answer to the final exam. If you love one another, if you demonstrate the Jesus kind of love for one another, then you have passed the discipleship class. 

Much is written about discipleship and many churches even offer discipleship classes. It seems to me that Jesus offered a discipleship class too; it was the observance of his life, of course, but he sums up the whole thing with one little sentence. It all boils down to love. I sure wish he had said the evidence of a true disciple is faithfulness, diligence or perseverance in the faith, but he didn’t. The only way anyone will identify me as a disciple of Christ is if they see the love of God issuing from me. The apostle Paul said that without love, anything else, everything else is meaningless (1 Corinthians 13: 1-3). He got it. He understood Jesus’ message.

Stating it a different way would simply be to say that Christianity is: “loving one another as Jesus loves us.” That’s it. You can take every book on theology ever written and boil it down to that one sentence. There is your entire thesis in one sentence. I wish it was as easy to live it as to say it. 

The Apostle John said it this way, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen” (1 John 4: 20 NIV). In other words, if I do not love my brother, then I am not a disciple of Christ. To be more accurate though, Jesus said that we must love one another as he loves us. That is to say, if I do not love others as Jesus loves us then I am no disciple of his; not a follower of the way (Jesus); not even really a Christian which means one who follows Christ.

What kind of love is this then? “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3: 16).  It is a sacrificial love. It is others centered, putting the needs of others above my wishes. That is a tall bill to fill and I cannot do it in my own strength. In fact, it is in the surrender of my strength that I can do all things. But guess what, Jesus couldn’t do it in his own strength either. That is why he sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. None of us can do what God has called us to do in our own strength that is why God empowered us through His abiding presence living inside of us. We must live through the presence of God in our hearts. Jesus allowed the father’s compassion to flow through him. We don’t have to be super heroes. We just have to allow our abiding in Christ and his dwelling in us to be expressed. We learn to let go of our desperate grasp and to let God flow out of our inner being. It is a hard thing to do when we are still wedded to our flesh but as we learn to live out of our spirits we will find it increasingly easy and joyful. When Jesus told us to live this way it was because he had a revelation from God that we could. His early disciples did and we can too. As we are transformed through the renewing of our minds we discover a radical trust of God inside of us and that trust empowers us to let go and live beyond the means of mortal man. We will soar on wings as eagles and nothing, by any means, shall be impossible to us. It is the power of love.

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Love and Truth

On December 4, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 John 4: 7

God is love.

John 14: 6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me.”

There is an intersection between truth and love. Perhaps a better analogy would be of a cord or rope that is made by twisting several threads together. Love and truth are a part of one whole. They go together. There can be no truth apart from love because Jesus is the truth and God is love. They must go hand in hand.

I have been learning this lesson the hard way for quite a number of years now. I hope I now have it. Because I have always valued truth so highly I thought other people did too. In my paradigm there is no knowledge without truth. I didn’t want to be wrong so I was willing to accept the truth. I have lived in a world where I was happy to be taught something outside my present reality because I was in search of truth and knowledge. I could be corrected because I was after actual truth, not just my version of it. I have learned, though, that most people are not like me. Most of us have a real investment in being right. And many times we are happy in our delusions and misinformation so we don’t thank a person who teaches us otherwise. We certainly don’t applaud them for correcting us. 

Truth apart from love does not set people free. I labored under the delusion that truth alone will set people free but that is not what the Bible says. It says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8: 32). You see, it is only the truth that you hear that will set you free. People will only be able to receive the truth when it is spoken with love. So before we try to correct people, we must first love them. I wish we could just speak the naked truth and people adopt it and change but it just doesn’t work that way. Our criticisms, verdicts and censures are preventing the truth from being heard. We are preaching the law of death, judgment and condemnation when we ought to be preaching the message of love and reconciliation. The law kills. Only love sets free. 

No matter what we think of another person’s lifestyle, even when it seems clear that they are in violation of Biblical principles, there is only one approved approach and that is to love them. We have created a society where few people really feel like they fit in. I am shocked by the number of people who tell me that they have felt like a square peg in a round hole. I look at them and think they fit but they have lived in a system of condemnation rather than acceptance so that they don’t feel approved. They constantly feel abnormal and rejected. It is so easy to identify what we believe is someone’s fault, sin or error. Why do we find it so much more difficult to applaud what they do right? And besides that, why can’t we love them just because they are children of God? Maybe our damage is showing. 

I had a situation where someone I knew was involved in adultery. I had the worst time trying to accept them because they continued in the adultery. I mean that one is on God’s Top Ten List. I could point to it and say, “I know that is wrong.” It turns out, though, that it was not my job to pass judgment, even in the case where the Bible was clear. Only Jesus has been given the right to judge. My job is to love. I mean, read the book. How many times did Jesus tell us not to judge but rather to love others? So the bottom line is that no matter how much we disapprove of another’s way of living or their actions, it has not been given to us to correct them. Jesus has given us the job of loving every single person on this earth. This is what I call “Adult Christianity” because this isn’t easy but we who want to be mature must grow up in it. We must do what is difficult. We cannot judge a person into Christianity but we sure can love them into it. Love is the greatest power there is and it draws all people unto itself. If you want to abide in truth, you must first abide in love. Truth without love is just dressed up condemnation and rejection. Let us not be masters of that. Be known as a person of great love. That is a high and worthy ambition.

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