Tag: Love

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A New Commandment

Daily Reading

John 13-15

Daily Thought

The end was near, and by the end, I mean when Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30), and died for the sins of the world. Preparing his disciples for the events that would soon follow, “that he had come from God and was going back to God” (John 13:3), Jesus grabbed a towel and began washing his disciples’ feet. Peter, believing it undignified of Jesus to play the servant (because he would think himself undignified if he had done the same), told Jesus to stop, but Jesus corrected him: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8). That is to say, if you are to be like me, Peter, you shall allow me to serve you and “you also should do just as I have done to you” (John 13:15).

Jesus explained he would soon leave them, and “where I am going you cannot come” (John 13:33). Last words are important words, and none more important than what followed, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). 

Peter missed the last words completely and returned to the first, “Lord, where are you going?” (John 13:36). Sometimes, I think Jesus chose Peter as a disciple because he would ask the questions all of us are thinking. How often we concern ourselves with where Jesus went or when he is coming back, neglecting the very thing he told us to do in his absence, to love one another. 

When I was a teenager, I remember the church sanctuary packed on Wednesday evening for a conference on “End Times,” then, the next night, a dozen would show up to feed the hungry at the mission. I’m not throwing stones, I was there Wednesday, not Thursday. We argue at the edges and miss the center, “love one another,” then wonder at the world’s difficulty in recognizing his disciples. 

Daily Prayer

God, Almighty, Powerful, Wonderful, and Wise, You are worthy of all praise. The whole world sings of Your glory. And you got down on your knees and washed my feet. And you got up on a cross and died in my place. Serving and sacrifice.

May I have that same attitude, one of humility and service. One of sacrifice and dying to myself. One of love. May the world know that You are God, my God, because I show them the same love You have shown me.

Amen

Daily Question

How good are Christians at loving one another? How can we improve?

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Nick at Night

Daily Reading

John 3-4

Daily Thought

John, the writer of this gospel, makes much of darkness and light, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19). All people love. What matters is what you love, for in this you determine who you are. Nicodemus “came to Jesus by night” because he was part of the darkness, “a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews (John 2:1). Here stood Nicodemus at night, and from the darkness, he approached the light. 

Nicodemus began with a mixture of flattery and curiosity, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2). Before he asked his question, Jesus cut him off and answered, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Still dark, and Nicodemus said so, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4). Jesus continued, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). That did not help. Nicodemus still could not see. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). That made no sense whatsoever to Nicodemus, but he kept listening. Dawn was approaching and he kept listening. 

Then Jesus said it, that most famous of all Bible verses, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And the light began to shine.

We meet Nicodemus again, twice. Once when the Pharisees gathered to condemn Jesus. Nicodemus argued, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” (John 7:51). Like he had done. And finally, at the cross, when “Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight,” to bury his Savior and King. He did not know yet a resurrected Jesus, but it was daytime now, and Nicodemus walked in the light.

Daily Prayer

God, there is so much evidence of You. Everywhere I look screams of Your wonder and majesty. How can I doubt? How can I walk away? How can I chase other gods? You are the Creator, the Everlasting God. In You I am done searching. You are my God.

Thank You for turning on the light. I can see again. I now know why I am here and what is ahead for me. I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God. What fear I in this world when I know the King and the King knows me?

Amen

Daily Question

How did God turn on the light in your life?

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Turning Back

Daily Reading

Lamentations 3:37-5:22

Daily Thought

God used Babylon as his hammer of judgment against Israel, but that does not mean the mallet was swung by God’s hand. God lifted his hand of protection and Babylon was eager and willing to crush Judah. Jeremiah describes this as “greater than the punishment of Sodom” (Lamentations 4:6). Sodom saw God’s fist, “then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven” (Genesis 19:24). Judah saw God’s back, and that is worse. God turned away from Judah. It was the back of God Jesus saw when, carrying the sins of the world on the cross, he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). There is no greater hell.

God destroyed Sodom. Judah, he planned to save, and salvation requires a deeper pain. Judah must repent. To repent means to change direction, and change is resisted until the pain of staying the same is worse than the pain of turning around. Parents have tools of discipline: spanking, grounding, lectures (I preferred a spanking to my dad’s lectures, quicker and less painful). But, of last resort, they let go. The father gave the prodigal son his inheritance and turned away. He left his son to himself.

Judah cried out, “Why do you forget us forever, why do you forsake us for so many days?” (Lamentations 5:20). They were afraid God’s back meant he no longer cared. They were wrong, he cared more, enough to let his child go, to place Judah on the painful path toward repentance.

“I called on your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit;
you heard my plea, ‘Do not close
your ear to my cry for help!’
You came near when I called on you;
you said, ‘Do not fear!’
You have taken up my cause, O Lord;
you have redeemed my life” (Lamentations 3:55-58). 

Daily Prayer

Mighty God, I look to You each morning and anticipate the day, and each evening I give thanks. You are always there, always sovereign, always involved, always in love. It took me awhile to learn this; I thought my way better, and You let me wander, but You were always there to hear my call. Thank You for walking slow enough for me to catch up.

I love being part of Your good news, God. Thank You for salvation, for hearing my cry, for giving me life and life’s purpose. I still try to grab the controls. Don’t let me! Your way is much better.

Amen

Daily Question

What kind of discipline worked best on you as a child?

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True Love

Daily Reading

Jeremiah 18-22

Daily Thought

God makes as a condition of Judah’s judgment their goodness to others, that they will treat well those who are lost, harmed, poor, and abused. “Thus says the Lord: ‘Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place’” (Jeremiah 22:3). Yet later, when asked why they are being judged, the answer is, “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them” (Jeremiah 22:9). So, which is it that brings judgment against Judah, their indifference toward others or their idolatry against God?

Jesus was asked which commandment is greatest. He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” But he wasn’t finished, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). Two commandments, together the greatest, essential to each other, neither stands alone. Indifference is idolatry; compassion is worship.

“The righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’” ~Matthew 25:37-40

Our love for God is only as true as it is displayed in our love for others, and our love for others is only as true as our devotion to God and his ways. 

Daily Prayer

Wonderful God, I am learning to love You better by learning to love others more. You are teaching me humility and service by doing it Yourself first. I would not know You unless You had sacrificed Yourself for me; You loved me that much. May I love that much.

I cannot worship my Creator without caring for those You created, those who bear Your very image. May I love actively, seeking opportunities to serve and to share. May others find You in my actions toward them, recognizing Your grace and goodness in all I do.

Amen

Daily Question

When is it most difficult to love people? When is it most difficult to love God? How are these two questions related to each other?

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Do Not Open Until Christmas

Daily Reading

Song of Songs 1-8

Daily Thought

How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!
Your lips drip nectar, my bride;
honey and milk are under your tongue. ~Song of Songs 5:10-11

Solomon’s Song of Songs reminds us of God’s creative delight in fashioning the passions and pleasures of love and marriage. This is love at heaven’s height, the love we long for, to be cherished and savored and guarded. The world sings of love and celebrates sex in free-for-all fashion and you get what you pay for. Beware the ways of the world for they cheapen us. “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom” (Song of Songs 2:15), Solomon warns the young virgins.

My cousin Jim would sneak under the tree a week before Christmas and open his big gift to see what it was. He would play with it, rewrap it, and repeat the next night. By Christmas morning, the surprise was over, the wrapping tattered, and the joy of discovery lost. 

We were created with a powerful passion that must be protected. The young woman urges her friends, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases” (Song of Songs 2:7). The purity of your youth is a precious gift; do not open it early. It belongs to someone special.

She spies him, “My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand” (Song of Songs 5:10). He observes her, too, “As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women” (Song of Songs 2:2). They each have found the other, their one-in-a-million, and there is a wedding, and they open the gift.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. ~Genesis 2:24-25

Daily Prayer

Loving Father, thank You for Your goodness. You looked at Your Creation and saw that it was good. Except one thing. Man was alone. You made woman, brought them together, and it was very good.

God, may my life be holy, my love pure, and my marriage an example of all You had in mind when you paired man with woman and said, “This is very good.”

Amen

Daily Question

What is marriage and why is it to be protected?

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God Knows

Daily Reading

Psalm 133-139

Daily Thought

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts! ~Psalm 139:23

Psalm 139 is a dangerous poem because intimacy is dangerous. David invites into his heart the one who has searched him and known his innermost and deepest thoughts. God knows David better than David knows David, and God will find more in David’s heart than even David knows is there. “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). Think about that; God knows you better than you know you. That is either wonderful or awful or both.

The difference comes not in what we believe God will find in us, but what we believe of God. If God is only judge, then there is only terror. We fear him and should. But he is Savior first, and so there is fear and wonder. “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,” explained God’s Son, “but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). We are condemned already, he says, because we know enough of our hearts to know the darkness, but “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). We cannot hide our darkness, and we do not need one who closes his eyes to it. We need a Savior who sees the darkness and through it, and leads us in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:24). Invite him in.

Daily Prayer

Heavenly Father, what a fantastic life! You have created the most wonderful world. You made me in Your image, gave me my intellect and emotions and will. You made me one who laughs and sings and works and runs and plays. You gave me the ability to be delighted, and then put a delightful world around me.

And I sin, and the world is clouded. Come inside and deal with that, God. Put me to the test and show me how badly I am missing the wonders about me. It is a wonderful life, You are a God of wonders, and I am wonderfully made. Restore me, God, to a life overflowing and everlasting and good.

Amen

Daily Question

How does it make you feel that God knows everything about you?

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Que Sara Sara

Daily Reading

Psalm 115-118

Daily Thought

Why, the psalmist wonders, would anyone put their trust in things that know nothing, with “mouths, but do not speak” and “eyes, but do not see” and “ears, but do not hear” and “noses, but do not smell” and “hands, but do not feel” and “feet, but do not walk” (Psalm 115:4-7). We worship idols of silver and gold and follow the stars or fate.

We trust our math, but math does not think. It’s mechanical: 2 plus 2 is always 4. Math leads a dull life. Que sera sera–what will be, will be. The same with science. We use science to do wonderful things, and we should, but science itself simply observes. Why would you trust it with your life? Science does not love you. It cares nothing for you at all.

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. ~Romans 1:22-23

Life is neither random nor wooden; it is personal. Science and math and fate and the stars do what they are told, but “our God does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). He made the stars in the heaven, and he made the butterfly flap. He made everything and knows every one, and he loves “you and your children! May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (Psalm 115:14-15).

Math and science explain a lot, but cannot explain love–but the apostle John can because he met Jesus: “We love because he first loved us” (1John 4:19). It’s personal and we follow God for his pleasure. And ours.

Daily Prayer

My God and Savior, You are good. Your Son even said, “No one is good, but God alone.” Certainly not me. Yet, you have given me righteousness. Not mine, but the righteousness of Jesus Christ. What a gift. Thank you God. Why in the world do You care about me? Because You do what You please and You chose to love me. I certainly didn’t do anything to deserve it. Thank You!!

May the Name of Jesus be praised, be honored, be worshiped. My God and Savior. May my life point to salvation through Your Son, the One who cares, who gave His all for me.

Amen

Daily Question

Why do you worship God?

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For God So Loved the World

Daily Reading

Psalm 108-114

Daily Thought

In Psalm 108, David sings of the love of God, “For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds” (Psalm 108:4). God’s love is so great, sings David, the world can hardly contain it. 

I love ice cream. It gives me pleasure. I love things that give me pleasure. I should admit, then, that I do not love spumoni ice cream. You see, my love is conditional. I love ice cream, but only the kind I like. 

That is one kind of love, my kind of love. 

There is another kind: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God hates evil, and we are covered in it. We reject and rebel against our own Creator, the Lord of the heavens and the earth, the one true God, and still he loves us. He loves us completely, to the death. What is amazing is not that the love of God reaches to the heavens, but that it touches earth; “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). With all due respect to David, this is an even greater measure of God’s love:

“For God so loved the world…” ~John 3:16.

Daily Prayer

Amazing God, You deserve the worship of all creation. Yet, so often, I forget about You. Many choose to ignore you. Some even hate You. And still, You love us, die for us, and offer us salvation. We reject Paradise and You invite us back. Truly, You are love.

I am able to love, God, because You first loved me. I pray that my love for the world always and fully reflects Your love for the world.

Amen

Daily Question

How do you love someone you’re not really sure you even like? 

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An Awful Lot of Space

Daily Reading

Psalm 103-105

Daily Thought

“The universe is a pretty big space. It’s bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before,” says Ellie Arroway, a character in the movie “Contact,” adapted from a novel by American astrophysicist Carl Sagan. “So, if it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space, right?” As if size makes a difference. She dreams of the greatness of the universe, but cannot imagine the grandeur of God.

O Lord my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
covering yourself with light as with a garment,
stretching out the heavens like a tent.
He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind.” ~Psalm 104:1-3

If, to God, “a thousand years are but as yesterday” (Psalm 90:4), then what of light years and solar systems and black holes and galaxies and an awful lot of space? There is no difference in effort to create birds that fly or stars that shoot, so even if it’s just for us, I delight in creation and adore the Creator, and that is the point. “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all” (Psalm 104:24). A wall calendar might do, but God “made the moon to mark the seasons” (Psalm 104:19). God fills the dreams of the Psalm writers, so that we would look to the stars and know “as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him” (Psalm 103:11).

The universe is a pretty big space and that is an awful lot of love.

Daily Prayer

My God, Maker of the heavens, Creator of the earth, wow! What a world! Your fingerprints are seen in everything, the wisdom of Your ways, the wonder of Your workmanship. You are mighty and majestic, and You are my God.

I’m amazed at Your attention, that You look after me, and more, that You rescued me. You, the king of the heavens became a baby on earth, and served man, and died for me. There is no greater love, no wonder you made a big universe to display it.  You are worthy of my praise and my all. I worship You.

Amen

Daily Question

What do you learn about God when you look up at the heavens?

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Zero

Daily Reading

Job 1-4

Daily Thought

Zero is quite powerful. When you add zero, nothing much happens. But try multiplying! Go ahead. Multiply anything by 0, and what do you get? Zero. Zero dominates! 12 x 0 = 0; 20 x 0 = 0; 8 billion (the number of people on planet earth) x 0 = 0. We spend our entire lives adding and subtracting, but at the end, everything we have gets multiplied by zero. Zero is the death of everything. Zero is death. Does that seem disheartening? Think again. 

Look in your closet, your attic, your garage, your hope chest, your cupboards. Nothing we accumulate adds value to who we are, nor does losing anything or everything take it away. It is incredibly powerful to realize that our worth comes from nothing more and nothing less than being a child of God made in his image. And Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Satan thought he could take everything away from Job and Job would curse God. “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face” (Job 1:9-11).

Take it all; I still have my God. Nothing can touch that! No one can touch that. Not a demeaning boss, nor a degrading father, nor a disloyal friend, nor the devil himself. When we delight in God we find rest, contentment, peace, significance. Nothing can rob us of that, because God is not going anywhere.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ~Romans 8:38-39

Daily Prayer

Father in heaven, you are the Creator of all things. I give you all glory and honor and praise. What a world you have created! Forgive me for focusing on the trivial when the majesty of your creation is forever in front of me. Oh Lord, may I be content in you.

Faith, hope, and love, these are essential. And the greatest of these is love. Out of my faith in the God of truth, out of my hope in the God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, may I love you with all of my heart, my soul, my mind, and my might. And may I love others, and thus display my love for You to the world.

Amen

Daily Question

What would be different if you saw yourself the way God sees you?