Pastor’s Blog

Monday, December 1, 2008

Read:  Luke 1:26-38     John 1:14

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a painting of Mary, the mother of Jesus, that got it right.  The magnificent, regal clothing she wears in the paintings is certainly nothing like the rough, homespun, usually dirty clothing the real Mary would have worn.  The dainty features and snow-white complexion of a lady of leisure in the paintings is nothing like that of the real Mary who labored long hard hours, six days a week under the hot Galilean sun.  The idyllic, romanticized version of Nazareth or Bethlehem in the paintings is nothing like the poor, rough villages of mud huts and dirt floors in the real Mary’s life.  How about Mary’s well-scrubbed, beatific demeanor as she gazes at the new-born Jesus in the paintings?  The real Mary was homeless as she gave birth in a stable, far away from  any family, having to lay her new baby down in a manger, a feeding trough for cattle.  I’m not so sure she appeared well-scrubbed or beatific at that moment.

The point is that Jesus didn’t arrive in a golden chariot.  He didn’t flit down from heaven with splendid, gossamer wings.  He wasn’t born to a princess in a palace.  When the Word became flesh, when the Son of God took upon Himself our humanity He declared that all life is sacred.  There are no throw-away people in God’s world.  There are no second-class citizens in God’s world.  You are precious in God’s sight.  Your neighbor is precious in God’s sight.  The orphan child dieing of malaria in the African bush is precious in God’s sight.  The twelve year old child prostitute in Cambodia is precious in God’s sight.  The heroin addicted prostitute throwing up in an alley in East Baltimore is precious in God’s sight.  The inmate on death row is precious in God’s sight.  The fifty-five million children aborted around the world every year are precious in God’s sight.

There are no God-forsaken places.  There are no God-forsaken people.  When Jesus took our flesh upon Himself this is exactly what He declared.

Prayer:  Father, You have never forgotten me, You have never forsaken me.  Please produce in me the kind of love that never forgets nor forsakes.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Read:  I Corinthians 8:1-13

There was a huge disagreement going on in the church in Corinth.  Most of the meat sold in the marketplaces in the city had come from animals sacrificed in pagan temples.  Many of the Christians there believed that it was wrong to eat such meat.  Others held the view that the idols worshiped in the pagan temples had no real existence, and therefore the meat offered in those temples remained simply meat, and that there was nothing wrong with eating it.  The Apostle Paul agreed with the second group.  They knew they were right, and Paul knew they were right.  However, Paul reminded them, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  Pridefully exercising their “right” to do what they knew was right, they caused their fellow Christians to fall back into their old ways by encouraging them to do something that troubled their conscience.  “And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.” (I Corinthians 8:11)  Thus, Paul concluded, “if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.” (I Corinthians 8:13)

How many times has your “knowledge” caused you to act in very unloving ways?  For example, how many times have you been in some disagreement with someone, and you were more interested in being proven right than you were in showing that person the love of Christ?  Our “knowledge” puffs us up so that we’re pridefully more interested in winning the argument than we are in demonstrating the love of Jesus.  Or, how many times have you known you were in the right in some conflict, and that knowledge kept you from being merciful or forgiving?  Or, how many times have you “known” you were right about some issue of politics, theology, or whatever, and that “knowledge” caused you to speak in very unloving ways about those who disagree with you?

Love always builds up.  Love always does what’s best for the other person.  Jesus teaches us and empowers us to practice this kind of love.  Praise the Lord!

Prayer:  Father, please help me not to be so concerned about being proven right.  Help me, instead, to do the greatest thing, to love.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Read:  Matthew 25:31-46

Let me tell you the story of a man named Matthew (not his real name).  Matthew lives with his wife and three children in a small village near Katima Mulilo, Namibia.  I met Matthew while serving at our children’s home, the Children of Zion Village.  Like everyone else in his village, Matthew is very poor.  He and his family live in a one-room, mud hut with a thatched roof and dirt floor.  All cooking is done on an open fire outside, and there is absolutely no furniture in the hut except for grass matts which are used for sleeping at night.  Now, here’s the amazing thing I learned about Matthew.  Although he and his wife  are so very poor and can barely feed themselves and their three children, they have also taken into their home and are caring for and feeding five additional children.  The parents of these five children have all died of various diseases.  Matthew and his wife have voluntarily assumed full responsibility for these orphans.  If you ask Matthew why they have done this, he will answer right away, “Jesus has been so good to us, we must be good to others.”

When you know how good God has been to you, and trust that He will hold you in His loving hands always, you are able to draw the circle of love very widely.  When you know how blessed in Jesus you are, you are able to love people you don’t know, people you don’t have any “responsibility” for, people you disagree with, people who annoy you, even people who are your enemies.

Jesus makes it very plain in Matthew 25:31-46 that on the Day of Judgment we will be held accountable for whether we have learned and praticed this kind of love or not.  Those who have not loved “the least of these” will “go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”  As James said, “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” (James 2:17)

Prayer:  Father, please fill my heart with gratitude.  Remind me how blessed I am.  Please teach me to love as I have been loved.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Read:  Luke 10:25-37

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  How good it is to know the One to whom all thanks is due.  Take time this day to consider how good God has been to you.  Spend time expressing your gratitude to Him.  Remember also to pray for our nation, lifting up your heart in thanksgiving, repentance, and intercession.

Throughout this week we have been considering the topic of love, focusing on the fact that the Lord’s number one goal for our lives is to teach us how to love.  If we don’t learn how to love, we are warned, we will surely fall away from Him.  The question is, how do we learn to love?  For the last couple of days we have been saying that we cannot learn how to love unless we trust that we are safely in the hands of a loving God.  You cannot do the risky, sacrificial things of love unless you trust that God is taking care of you.

Today I want for us to begin to focus on a second lesson of love.  When I was in seventh grade at Severna Park Junior High School the boy’s gym class had a unit on wrestling.  All the boys in the class were assigned a partner with whom to practice.  When I found out who was assigned to be my partner I couldn’t believe it.  He was the kid in class that nobody liked.  He looked funny, he said strange things, he smelled bad, he had no friends; and I absolutely did not want to be his wrestling partner.  So, what did I do?  After all these years I’m still embarassed to say that I quickly figured out a sneaky plan, went to the gym teacher, and got a different partner.  That evening at home the phone rang.  It was the mother of the strange boy calling my mother.  Her son had no friends, and I had deeply hurt him, she told my mother.  Two days later my mother took me to the boy’s house.  I mumbled an apology, we spent the afternoon together, and actually had a good time.

Why had I been so selfish?  The answer, of course, is that my universe revolved around me.  I had no concern for the other boy’s feelings because I was completely wrapped up in how being a partner with that boy would affect me.  To learn how to love you have to expand the center of your own universe beyond yourself.  The Samaritan man in Jesus’ story was as concerned for the well being of the man who had been beaten by robbers as he was for himself.  This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  This second lesson depends on the first.  You can bring your neighbor into the center of your universe when you trust that God is taking care of you.

Prayer:  Father,  please help me to trust You enough to love others as much as I love myself.  Please help me to be not so self-absorbed but rather absorbed in the great goal You have for me: to learn how to consistently do what’s best for the other person, no matter what.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Read:  Galatians 2:20    I John 4:18-19

I know a young man who grew up in an orphanage overseas.  When he had arrived at the orphanage as a boy he was angry, sometimes violent, and almost completely uncommunicative.  He wanted nothing to do with the other children or the staff, and simply wouldn’t talk except when he lashed out in anger.  His mother had died very suddenly, and after her death his father abandoned him.  He was, for the most part, living on his own as a young boy just trying to survive when he was brought to the orphanage.  The anger and diffident silence was simply a mask he wore to hide the deep fears and insecurities that lurked just below the surface.  If you were to meet this young man today you would never guess the things I have just told you.  Today he is warm, outgoing, loving, and completely committed to Jesus Christ.  What made the difference?  The answer is love.  Let me say it again; love, love, love.  As that angry, hurting boy experienced the love of God day in and day out at the orphanage, gradually his fears and insecurities were replaced by faith in the loving kindness of Jesus Christ.

Throughout this week we are considering the topic of learning how to love.  As we said in yesterday’s meditation, you learn how to truly love (to consistently do what’s best for the other person) only when you trust that you are in the loving hands of God.  How else can you do the risky, sacrificial things of love?   In Galatians 2:20 Paul the Apostle writes, “the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  That faith gave Paul the courage and strength to love.  In John 4:18 we read that, “perfect love casts out fear.”  Let the perfect love of God cast out your fears so that you are able to go beyond self-interest and truly love others.  What would that mean in your life?  How else could Jesus do the one thing we needed Him to do for us, to go to the cross, unless He trusted that His Father loved Him and would raise Him up from the hell of the cross?

Prayer:  Father, please help me to trust in the love You have shown us all on the cross.  I want to learn how to truly love.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Read:  Luke 10:25-37   I John 4:18-19

Throughout this week we are considering the topic of love.  As we have said over the last several days, unless you learn how to love you will eventually fall away from God.  The question is, how do we learn to love?

Love means to do what is best for the other person.  The natural inclination of our souls, however, is to do what’s best for ourselves.  Whether that means protecting ourselves from harm, satisfying the emotional or physical desires of soul and body, or simply trying to survive; our inclination is to take care of ourselves first and foremost.  Is it possible to become persons whose first and foremost aim is to do what’s best for others?  That’s God’s intent for us.  Can we learn that kind of love?  In Luke 10:25-37 Jesus tells the story of a Samaritan man who did so.  At great risk to himself (because violent robbers might very well have set a trap for him), and at great cost to himself  (in both time and money), and at great emotional price (because of the racial hatred that he faced at the hands of people like the man he was about to help), this Samaritan man did what was best for the man he found half dead on the road.  How do you learn to love like that?  The answer is that you have to trust that you are safely in the hands of a loving God.  To truly love always makes you vulnerable to harm, or to not having your desires satisfied, because your goal is to do what’s best for the other person no matter what.  The only way you can do that is to trust that God is taking care of you.  Do you have that kind of faith?  If so, the goal of your life doesn’t have to be taking care of yourself; the goal of your life can be to love.  As John said, “We love, because He first loved us.”  (I John 4:19)

Prayer:  Father, please increase my faith.  Please help me to trust You more and more so that I can make it my goal to love, to do what’s best for others no matter what.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Read:  II Peter 1:3-11   James 2:14-17

For the past fifty days we have been studying the plan found in II Peter 1:3-11 and asking God to help us work this plan in our lives.  He promises us that if we “make every effort” to work this plan it will make us effective in serving Him and keep us from ever falling away from Him.  I want to be effective in serving Him, and I want to never fall away from Him; but simply wanting something, even if you want it real bad, doesn’t make it happen.  Not only do you have to want it, you’ve got to work for it.  Are you willing to work at this plan, not just for these fifty days but for the rest of your life?

The eighth and last step of the plan is love (II Peter 1:7).  I knew a man who got on fire for Jesus in a very big, sudden, and dramatic way.  When he turned to Jesus a whole lot of things in his life changed very quickly.  Alcohol, drugs, gambling, adultery, and a number of other destructive behaviors were all at once gone.  He dove into the life of being a Christian.  Worship, Bible studies, prayer groups, outreach ministries, personal evangelism, etc., filled his life.  If the doors of the church were open, he was there.  If revival was breaking out somewhere he could get to, he was there.  People were amazed at the  dramatic changes in his life.  There was one change, however, that never happened.  He never learned how to love, to truly love.  He never learned how to truly love his wife, his children, people he disagreed with, people who let him down, people who he felt did him wrong.  And what was the result?  He fell away from God.  He ended up making one bad decision after another.  Today, after all that fire for Jesus, he now has very little to do with Him.  James 2:17 tells us, “faith by itself, if it has no works (the works of love) , is dead.”

Make it the number one goal of your life as a follower of Jesus to learn how to love.  To know the Bible well is an awesome goal.  To learn how to pray with faith is an awesome goal.  To learn how to truly worship God is an awesome goal.  The number one goal, however, must be to learn how to love.  Without that, all the rest amounts to absolutely nothing.  Don’t believe me?  Read I Corinthians 13:1-3 again.

Prayer:  Father, You tell us that with You all things are possible.  You tell us that nothing is impossible to those who believe.  I believe that I will learn how to love.  I believe that I will be able to work this entire plan we have studied.  I believe that with Your help I will make a difference in this world.  I believe that with Your help I will never give up.  Thank You.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

(NOTE:  Though we are finished now in these Fifty Days With Jesus, I plan to continue to post daily meditations, Monday through Saturday, focusing on the scriptures from the previous weekend’s sermons.  I feel very blessed in writing them, and trust that you are blessed in reading them.)

Sunday, November 23, 2008

II Peter 1:3-11   I Corinthians 13:1-13

We have come almost to the end of our Fifty Days With Jesus.  We have been focusing on a plan (II Peter 1:5-7) God has given us to keep serving Him effectively without ever falling away.  We have been asking the Lord to be with us as we seek to build into our lives those qualities of character that give us the strength, power, confidence, and courage to fight the good fight, to run the race well, to never give up serving our God no matter what.  Our children need us to never give up.  Our spouses need us to never give up.  Our brothers and sisters need us to never give up.  The lost of this world need us to never give up.  The poor need us to never give up.  For the sake of our own souls we need to never give up.  Work this plan so that you never, never, never give up.

Today we come to the eighth and last step of that plan, the step of love.  It’s no accident that love is the last step in this plan.  God’s number one goal for your life is to teach you how to love.  That’s the whole reason you were put on this earth in the first place (see Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 22:34-40; I Corinthians 13:13; I Peter 4:8; Colossians 3:14).  Now the thing about love is that it is the easiest and, at the same time, the most difficult thing in life to learn.  The very first day I met Lisa, my wife, I fell in love with her right away.  There was a romantic, emotional attraction to her that welled up in my heart instantly, and because of that attraction I was very loving toward her.  That was easy.  There was nothing difficult about it.  As Lisa and I got to know each other we discovered that we had a lot in common, we enjoyed one another, and the attraction of friendship developed in my heart; and because of that attraction I was very loving toward her.  Nothing difficult about that either.  Love that grows out of emotional attraction is relatively easy to learn and to do; but as wonderful as these kinds of love are, you and I have been created for an even greater kind of love.

What happens if emotional attraction disappears for a time?  Are we to stop loving?  What about persons for whom there is no emotional attraction?  Are we not to love them?  Jesus even commands us to love our enemies.  There’s certainly no emotional attraction there.  The kind of love God is seeking to teach us comes from a deeper place in the heart than the place of attraction.  It comes from the will, the place of deciding and choosing.  It is my will, my decision,  my choice to love you, to do what’s best for you, no matter what.  That’s the kind of love that’s not easy to learn, but it’s exactly what God has created you to learn and to do.

Prayer:  Father, please teach me how to love no matter what.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

(NOTE:  I am feeling so blessed in writing these meditations that I intend to keep doing so after our Fifty Days With Jesus is done.  My plan is to keep focusing on the scriptures of the previous weekend’s sermon.  I will post them, Lord willing, Monday through Saturday each week).

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Read:  II Peter 1:3-11   Romans 12:9-21

When Peter speaks of brotherly affection as a step in a plan (II Peter 1:3-11) to keep us from falling away from God, he is referring to our participation in the family of God.  He’s telling us that unless we learn how to love and receive love from our brothers and sisters in Christ we won’t be able to keep serving God effectively.  Lone Ranger Christians don’t make it.

In yesterday’s meditation and again today we are considering the question, do you know how to receive love from God’s family?  It’s interesting to me that we don’t read very much at all in the Bible about receiving love from our brothers and sisters.  Instead, we read passages like Romans 12:9-21 in which we find one admonition after another about giving love to one another.  In that passage, which focuses on life within the church, we read about showing honor to one another, being generous to those in need, practicing hospitality, rejoicing with those who rejoice, weeping with those who weep, living in harmony, associating with the lowly, repaying no one evil for evil, living peaceably, etc.  Why is all the instruction about giving love and none of it about receiving love?

The answer is that those who give, receive.  As Jesus said, “the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”  (Luke 6:38)  When we are consumed with our own problems, perhaps feeling sorry for ourselves and wallowing in self-pity, the best thing to do is to find ways to show the love of Jesus to others.  This doesn’t mean we should ignore our own problems or neglect the needs of our own souls, but it does mean that if I am self-absorbed, if the focus of my life is me, I won’t find the very thing I long for, love.  When you come to a worship service, when you participate in a Bible Study, when you join in a ministry or fellowship event; make it  your main thought, “how can I show love to someone in this place today?”  Again, as Jesus said, “give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”  (Luke 6:38)

Prayer:  Father, please teach me to love, that I may receive love.  Please teach me to stop throwing pity parties, but instead to  do the work of loving my sisters and brothers.  You know my need for love, and I trust that You will send it my way.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Read:  II Peter 1:3-11   Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Do you know how to receive love from your sisters and brothers in Christ?  When Peter speaks of brotherly  affection (II Peter 1:7) as a step in a plan to keep us from falling away from God, I am convinced that he is speaking of our overall participation in the family of God.  In other words, Peter is speaking of learning how to both give and receive love in God’s family. Without that ability we cannot effectively serve God for the long haul.

Learning how to receive love is much more difficult than it would appear.  For example, do you limit who you will receive love from?  In I Corinthians 12:21-22 we read, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’  On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable.”  In other words, we tend to only seek out fellowship and love from persons we find enjoyable, interesting, personable, etc.  Over the years I’ve listened to people complain that they couldn’t find fellowship in the church, but as I listened to those complaints I realized they only wanted fellowship with certain categories of people.  What would happen if you established a prayer group, for instance, with several persons you don’t consider to be enjoyable, interesting, or personable?  What if you sought out persons that everyone else ignores?  I have a feeling you might discover a lot more of Jesus’ love than you expect.

A second reason that receiving love is difficult is that love is not always warm and fuzzy.  Jeremiah 5:3 tells us of persons who, “refused to take correction.”  Will you accept correction?  My experience is that hardly anyone is willing to accept even the most loving correction.  Instead, persons usually break relationships with persons who were, “speaking truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) to them (although we tend to justify ending the relationship by coming up with other reasons for doing so).  If you’ve ended a relationship in the body of Christ for that reason, what would happen if you sought to re-establish that relationship?  Or, what would happen if you built a relationship with persons who you know are probably going to tell you truths you don’t want to hear?  You might receive a lot more of Jesus’ love than you expect.

Prayer:  Father, please help me to see the ways in which I avoid receiving love from my sisters and brothers in Christ.  In His Name, Amen.