Tag: Love

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A Free Gift

Daily Reading

2Corinthians 10-13

Daily Thought

Paul has a paternal relationship with the Corinthians, he is dad and they are his children, and parents provide for their kids, not the other way around, “for children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children” (2Corinthians 12:14). Jack’s mom came downstairs to start breakfast one morning and found a bill from her twelve-year-old son on the kitchen counter: mowing the lawn – $6; drying the dishes – $1; raking leaves – $6; cleaning garage – $7; total owed – $20. She smiled and made his breakfast. That afternoon, Jack came home from school and found next to a plate of cookies, an envelope with a twenty dollar bill inside and a note from his mom: washing clothes – nothing; vacuuming room – nothing; cooking meals – nothing; driving everywhere – nothing; baking cookies – nothing. Love, Mom.

This is the heart of Paul, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls” (2Corinthians 12:15), love with no strings attached. Any price tag attached to love devalues it.

Daily Prayer

I thank You, God, for Your grace, for the righteousness that comes from Your Son, for the power that comes through Your Spirit. You love is worth everything, but the cost of love is borne by the lover, and that is You, “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

Sometimes I get the idea that I have something to offer You, something You need. I should remember, and I shall remember, that everything I am is because of You. Everything I do, may it give You pleasure and bring You glory. And everything You have given me, may I share it freely, because it cost me nothing and You everything.

Amen

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Love

Daily Reading

1Corinthians 12-14

Daily Thought

I started a sermon on 1Corinthians 13 like this, “Dave is patient, Dave is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. Dave is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs. Dave does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Dave always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Dave never fails.” Then I laughed. Too many of the parts didn’t quite fit. The congregation laughed (a little too much, actually). My wife needed to stop laughing.

They knew what I was doing. 1Corinthians 13 is the love chapter. The Apostle Paul has been dealing with the problems in the Corinthian church for twelve chapters, and finally he stops and says, “now I will show you the most excellent way” (1Corinthians 12:31), and he writes about love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. ~1Corinthians 13:4-8

Go ahead, put your name in there. The parts where you cringe highlight the places needing work. This is the way we are to love because this is the way God loves us. In fact, put the name Jesus in there and it reads just fine. 

Paul sculpted this passage, choosing his words carefully, saying it just right, because love is the most important thing to get right. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1Corinthians 13:1-3). Love matters before anything else matters.

Daily Prayer

Heavenly Father, I am learning to love. Keep teaching me because You are perfect at love and there has been no greater display of love than the cross. Help me to be patient, to be kind. Keep me from envy and boasting and pride. Correct me when I am rude or self seeking or easily angered. Let me keep no record of wrongs. Change my heart so I do not delight in evil, but always rejoice with the truth. Teach me to protect and trust and hope and persevere. May I strive to be someone who never fails, but when I do, to get up and strive again, to do the next right thing, to always love. 

Amen

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Free to Choose

Daily Reading

1Corinthians 5-8

Daily Thought

Once a Muslim, now a Christian, he was attending the men’s breakfast, and we were inviting him to enjoy the bacon.”You know, as a Christian, you are freed from all those food restrictions and you can eat bacon or ham or whatever you like?”

He understood, “Yes, I know. I know I am free to eat, but I am also free not to eat it. I go home to my family in Egypt once a year, and when I come up to my father’s door, the first question he will ask me is, ‘Have those infidels taught you to eat the filthy hog meat yet?’ If I say to him, ‘Yes, father,’ I will be banished from that home and have no further witness in it. But if I say, as I have always said, ‘No, father, no pork has ever passed my lips,’ then I have admittance to the family circle and I am free to tell them of the joy I have found in Jesus Christ. Therefore I am free to eat, and I am free not to eat. I choose no bacon”

There are some things more important than knowledge. “’Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up” (1Corinthians 8:1). He knows he is free to eat whatever he wants, and what he wants is for his family to know Jesus.

Daily Thought

My God, You saved me. Not because I was good. Not because I was worth saving. You saved me because You loved me. What an amazing love, too, because I did not love You. I was not good, nor was I godly, and yet You went to death for my life. Now, because of Your goodness, I am becoming like You. 

May I love others, as well, sacrificing my wants for their needs. Make my deepest desire be to do what is good for others. May the choices I make help others choose Jesus.

Amen

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Names

Daily Reading

Romans 14-16

Daily Thought

The last chapter of Romans is like the credits at the end of a movie. I don’t sit through the credits. I usually make it to about verse 4, then I start skimming, but Paul names over thirty people by the end of this chapter. My son-in-law, Staphon, works at Pixar. There is a theater at Pixar and he got me in to see a movie before it was released. As the movie wound to what I thought was the end, I started to get up, but Staphon grabbed my arm and sat me down. The important part was just beginning, the credits. The theater was packed with Pixar people and the names of their friends and co-workers were beginning to roll. We sat to the very end.

Lest we think Paul is merely writing a treatise on theology, building this great religion called Christianity, this last chapter grounds us in reality and reminds us what is really important. This is about real people who live in real community with each other and follow a very real Savior, Jesus Christ. I go to church and I know the names of all sixty-six books of the Bible. God would be happier if I knew the name of the person sitting next to me. Paul knows who these people are and what they have done. He knows their role in the church and their service to God. Paul does not see the church as an organized religion, but as a community of people saved by Jesus Christ and in love with one another. Paul knows their names, and so does God. Every last one of them.

Daily Prayer

Father, I love You and worship You. And You love me. You love people. God, help me love better what You love most. 

Change my heart, God, and teach me to love well, to serve all, to follow the example of Your Son and live a life of compassion, to sacrifice my life for the sake of others.

Amen

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The Cup

Daily Reading

Luke 21-22

Daily Thought

It was his last Passover with the disciples. They did not know that, but Jesus did. He knew what was coming, and, during the meal, Jesus gave them (and us) something to remember, the bread and the wine would be his body and his blood. “This is my body, which is given for you. This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20). The disciples would, the following day, watch these words play out on a Roman cross. “But behold,” Jesus warned, “the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table” (Luke 22:21). Jesus already knew about Judas! “And you, Peter,” Jesus said, “the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me” (Luke 22:34). And it happened. The disciples will remember that Jesus knew ahead of time all that would happen, that he was still and always in command, but foreknowledge does not make the cross easier, rather, all-the-more terrifying.

Daddy had the flu. Five-year-old Sara wanted to help, and in she walked carrying a tray. On the tray, Sports Illustrated, some saltine crackers, and a cup of tea. “I didn’t know you could make tea,” smiled Dad. Sara smiled back and nodded her head. “I put the tea leaves in the water like Mom does, and then I strained it into a cup,” explained Sara. “But I couldn’t find a strainer, so I used the flyswatter.” 

Do you drink the tea? 

Taking some disciples with him to the Mount of Olives, Jesus “knelt down and prayed, saying, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.’” Jesus knew exactly what was in the cup set before him. He did not want to drink the cup. “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:41-42). He drank the cup, the cup of wrath for the sins of the world.

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” ~1John 3:16

Our choice is not to sacrifice, but to love, and sacrifice gladly follows.

Daily Prayer

My Savior Jesus, You came to this earth and drank the cup of death that belonged to me. You took my sin and made it Your own and bore my penalty of death for my sake. You demonstrated a love that I can barely comprehend. You are God, my Creator, and I rejected You–but You never rejected me. In fact, You became like me so You could go to the cross for me. You knew exactly what was coming.

I want to pray what You prayed, not my will, but Yours be done. Make me into someone who is willing to drink the cup of sacrifice, to display my love for You through my love for others, taking last place in order to serve those ahead of me.

Amen

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Unexpectedly

Daily Thought

Luke 12-13

Daily Thought

My dad popped into my room every so often just to see how I was doing, and, I suspect, to see what I was doing. I did not have a lock on my bedroom door, by design of my parents. It was my bedroom, but it was Mom and Dad’s house. No locking them out. Sometimes he knocked, more often he did not. My bedroom door would suddenly swing open and Dad would enter, which meant the door could suddenly unexpectedly swing open anytime. Some of my friends hid stuff and did stuff in their rooms, stuff they did not want their parents to see. Not me.

“You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” ~Luke 12:40

After his resurrection, Jesus met with his disciples and told them to go everywhere and share the Good News of God’s love with everyone. Then he disappeared into the heavens and the disciples were left staring. “And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’” (Acts 1:10-11). Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Be ready.

This is not to be a message of fear, however, but wonderful anticipation. “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them” (Luke 12:37). Jesus is more anxious to return than we are to see him. He cannot wait to set the table and serve a feast. Fear may be an effective deterrent against doing what is bad, but it does not make one good. Love does. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy” (Luke 12:32-33). 

We love because he first loved us. ~1John 4:19

Daily Prayer

Heavenly Father, we live in a world You created for us, a world that is good. I am so sorry for the bad I bring into it, and I am looking forward to the day Jesus comes and makes everything good again. I am amazed at Your love for me in spite of the way I mess things up. I am not just sorry, though. I will turn around and be a part of bringing good back into this world. Because You love me this much, how can I not do otherwise!

I pray, God, that the good things people see will turn their eyes toward You. May I live every moment eager for Your coming and hunger for Your blessings as much You love to bless me.  

Amen

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Oil and Whine

Daily Reading

Mark 14

Daily Thought

When a woman poured a flask of very expensive ointment on the head of Jesus, he accepted her offering as fitting and good, “She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Mark 14:6), but some in the room objected, “Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor” (Mark 14:4-5). In criticizing the woman, they actually demeaned Jesus. The oil, they said, could have been put to better use. The woman thought it best used for Jesus, no matter the cost. Besides, you cannot waste love.

One of those in the room, Judas Iscariot, however, put a price on Jesus, and “went to the chief priests in order to betray him to them. They were glad and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him” (Mark 14:10-11). To Judas, Jesus was a commodity, worth 30 pieces of silver. He came to Jesus for what he could get out of Jesus. But the woman adored Jesus–to her, Jesus was her Savior and Lord, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. She looked to gain nothing, but to give her all. If the woman had any regrets about emptying her jar of perfume on Jesus, it would be that she did not have more.

Daily Prayer

My God and Savior, what is amazing is that You gave Your all for me before I cared. You poured out Your blood for my sake, an act of love I can barely fathom. I am learning more about You, knowing You better each day, following more faithfully, loving You more fully. It is a lifetime of growth, but there is no better life to live.

My desire, Jesus, is to empty myself for You, as You did for me; to give up my desires and replace them with Yours; to lose myself in Your love for others; and to worship You by giving myself to You completely.

Amen

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The Wrath of God

Daily Reading

Nahum 1-3

Daily Thought

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a brutish people who crushed Israel. The city once repented briefly when warned by Jonah of God’s coming wrath, but returned again to evil and worse, “Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder–no end to the prey!” (Nahum 3:1). This time, there would be no prophetical warning, but a pronouncement of doom, and no nation would shed a tear over Nineveh’s demise, rather, “all who hear the news about you clap their hands over you” (Nahum 3:19). Imagine a funeral where everyone is happy you are gone.

Their doom is set–“the Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies” (Nahum 1:2). Such words seem ungodly to our ears, wrath and vengeance and jealousy, possibly because we like our soft-focused, air-brushed pictures of Jesus, or because we think God a watchmaker who merely wound up creation and turned her loose to run her course, but the true God is intimate and personal. His jealousy is not the emotion we exhibit, enviously desiring the possessions of others, but the jealousy of God is the loving desire to protect the people who belong to him, wrathfully when necessary, for where is the love if there is no anger kindled toward an enemy who brings harm. And where is justice if injustice is not avenged, and who better to trust vengeance to than the holy righteous God. 

Toward Nineveh is written, “Behold, I am against you, declares the Lord of hosts” (Nahum 3:5). This was welcome news to Judah in the face of her enemy. “The LORD is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him” (Nahum 1:7). This is the God of heaven and earth, who is an intimate father and passionately protective of his people against evil.

Daily Prayer

Lord God, Maker of the heavens and the earth, God outside of time and space, Creator of time and space, Author of life, the beginning and the end, Eternal Father, Savior and Lord, Yahweh, I Am That I Am.

Thank You for loving me.

Amen

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The Image of God

Daily Reading

Obadiah 1; Jonah 1-4

Daily Thought

Of Ninevah had been written, “Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder–dead bodies without end–who betrays nations with her whorings, and peoples with her charms” (Nahum 3:1, 3-4). Ninevah was an evil nation, hated by Israel, and God called the prophet Jonah to “arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:2). Ninevah was 500 miles east. Jonah immediately boarded a ship for Tarshish, two thousand miles west, the opposite direction. Jonah hated evil Ninevah, so he also hated a good God who is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah disobeyed God and set sail to remove God’s mercy as far from Ninevah as possible.

It did not work, of course. God sent a storm to get Jonah tossed from the ship, “so they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging” (Jonah 1:15); and God sent a great fish to swallow him up and deliver him back to Israel, “and the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land” (Jonah 2:10). “Let’s start over,” God said. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you’” (Jonah 3:1-2). Jonah obeyed this time, “and the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them” (Jonah 3:5), and God relented, just as Jonah had predicted, “when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry” (Jonah 3:10-4:1). Jonah would prefer a god made in his own image, a god who would hate the same people he hated. But that is not God.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:43-45). It turns out, the way you can tell God has made you in his image is how much you love the same people he loves.

Daily Prayer

Savior God, You are full of mercy and grace. My love for You is displayed as I love people. In fact, You said it will be apparent that I am Your disciple by my love for others. God, help me improve at love. Teach me Your ways. May I be a servant like Your Son.

Thank You for Your salvation. It has changed my heart. If You can show that kind of love for me, can I not love others the same?

Amen

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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