To live without love is to be a NOISY NOTHING. That is what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.
"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."
I can exercise the greatest spiritual gifts and abandon my body in life-giving sacrifice and it all count for NOTHING! A sobering thought. I can "minister" to others and it only be a loud, obnoxious NOISE to them. I can "give, give, give" and gain absolutely NO REWARD in heaven for it in the end. How? If I do all these things but "have not love."
More important than the question, "am I serving others?" is "do I LOVE others?" If my ministry is seeing no fruit perhaps the problem is lack of love. I have known believers who for all appearances had very little in the way of giftedness, but yet had a great impact on many people. Why? A "little" gift with a "lotta" love goes a long way. Too much of our (my) ministry is plagued with lovelessness.
What can a love-lacking servant of Christ do to move from being a "noisy nothing" to a bearer of much, lasting fruit?
1. The FRUIT of the Spirit is LOVE. Cry to the Father for the Spirit (Luke 11:13). He loves to give the Spirit of love to those who ask. As you face your next "ministry" opportunity...stop and pray for God to give you the help of His Spirit.
2. Meditate often and deeply on God's love for you. We love because He first loved us (1John 4:19). Think of the One who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for you (Romans 8:32). Think of the One who knew no sin but became sin for you (2Corinthians 5:21). To know His love is to be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2Corinthians 3:17-18).
3. Remember that love is not first of all a feeling (yet when healthy and free it feels plenty!) but a choice to act for the good of others. God so loved the world that He GAVE (John 3:16). I can love those I do not at present like. That is, I can act for the good of someone I feel little positive feelings for. God has given to us a spirit of power, LOVE, and self-control. I have power to love. I have power to act, to speak, to pray for even my enemies.
4. Develop real relationships. It is easy to live in a world of critical, judgmental, arm's length relationships. I can easily lack love towards those I live at a distance from. Perhaps your family past is shallow. Perhaps you don't know how to develop close relationships. Be honest about it. Ask for mentoring in love. Cling to Christ for the safety your heart needs when launching out into the deep of real-life relationships with others, even in the church. But decide that you will live in a fantasy world no longer. There is hope for the most love-less amongst us in the grace and Spirit-supply of our Father and our Lord.
May God be pleased to transform us "noisy nothings" into lavish lovers for His name's sake.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Needed and Needy
In the Body of Christ, all are needed and all are needy. This is why the Apostle Paul emphasizes in 1 Corinthians 12 that no one has all the gifts and all have no one particular gift. If you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, you have been given "the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" 1Corinthians 12:7.
The other members of your local church need the gift(s) you have. You are charged to use them for the benefit of others. How important you are to your church!! If you do not serve in your church using your gift(s), your church loses out and YOU lose out!
I am constantly blessed by the service gift of D.E., who makes coffee for the church on Sunday mornings. He does it because he wants to and because the Holy Spirit in him motivates him to serve us in this way. He also helps to take up the morning offering...again, just because he WANTS to serve. This past Sunday S.C. blessed us all with his gift of teaching during the morning's message. He excels in painting visual images that illustrate great gospel truths. We would have all missed out if he had buried that gift under a bad attitude of pride or the complaint that he just doesn't have the time. P.W. blesses me continually with the gift of encouragement. He doesn't just say, "That was a blessing"...he gives specific details about what blessed him. HOW we would all miss out at my local church without these individuals and many others. THEIR GIFTS BELONG TO US! They are NEEDED!
On the other hand, even though we are gifted by the Spirit, we are not given ALL the gifts. We NEED the gifts given to others. In the New Testament there is no such thing as a believer saying, "I just trust in Jesus for what I need, I don't need anyone or anything else." SOUNDS spiritual, but it is the WRONG spirit!! Jesus ministers to us in a significant way through the gifts given to others. This is one of the primary reasons NOT to forsake fellowship with your brothers and sisters - if you don't, you will miss out on what you need to stay spiritually fit.
False humility says, "I'm not needed." Plain ole arrogance says, "I'm not needy."
I CANNOT walk with Jesus in an ongoing intimate and growing way unless I both serve with my gifts and receive the service of others through their gifts.
I am needed and needy. I will always be. But I have you (plural) and you have me. Hallelujah!
The other members of your local church need the gift(s) you have. You are charged to use them for the benefit of others. How important you are to your church!! If you do not serve in your church using your gift(s), your church loses out and YOU lose out!
I am constantly blessed by the service gift of D.E., who makes coffee for the church on Sunday mornings. He does it because he wants to and because the Holy Spirit in him motivates him to serve us in this way. He also helps to take up the morning offering...again, just because he WANTS to serve. This past Sunday S.C. blessed us all with his gift of teaching during the morning's message. He excels in painting visual images that illustrate great gospel truths. We would have all missed out if he had buried that gift under a bad attitude of pride or the complaint that he just doesn't have the time. P.W. blesses me continually with the gift of encouragement. He doesn't just say, "That was a blessing"...he gives specific details about what blessed him. HOW we would all miss out at my local church without these individuals and many others. THEIR GIFTS BELONG TO US! They are NEEDED!
On the other hand, even though we are gifted by the Spirit, we are not given ALL the gifts. We NEED the gifts given to others. In the New Testament there is no such thing as a believer saying, "I just trust in Jesus for what I need, I don't need anyone or anything else." SOUNDS spiritual, but it is the WRONG spirit!! Jesus ministers to us in a significant way through the gifts given to others. This is one of the primary reasons NOT to forsake fellowship with your brothers and sisters - if you don't, you will miss out on what you need to stay spiritually fit.
False humility says, "I'm not needed." Plain ole arrogance says, "I'm not needy."
I CANNOT walk with Jesus in an ongoing intimate and growing way unless I both serve with my gifts and receive the service of others through their gifts.
I am needed and needy. I will always be. But I have you (plural) and you have me. Hallelujah!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Never Stop Applauding
In Ephesians 1 the Apostle Paul opens up the treasure chest of spiritual blessings that God has ALREADY blessed us with in Christ. Amongst these are:
- Being chosen in Christ to be holy and blameless, v.4
- Being predestined for adoption through Christ, v.5
- Being redeemed from slavery to sin's penalty and power through the blood of Christ, v.7
- Being sealed as a guarantee of our final inheritance by the indwelling Holy Spirit, vv.13,14
The reason God has done this?
"To the praise of His glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved" v.6
A good and accurate synonym for "praise" is "applause." God has blessed us from eternity past with blessings that are ours in time and will be ours until eternity future. And He has done this that He might receive APPLAUSE for His "glorious grace."
Glorious grace is the grace that takes God-haters and adopts them into the very family of God. Glorious grace is the grace that takes willing slaves to sin and Satan and buys them out of the slave-market of sin at the price of God the Son's own blood. Glorious grace is grace that gives the holy robe of Jesus' righteousness and makes it standard garb for the most filthy and vile of mankind...that is, you and me!
Right now (as He will throughout eternity), God is parading you and me, the objects of His glorious grace, before the heavenly beings that there might be APPLAUSE ringing across the 100,000 light year span of the Milky Way and far beyond. The giant and dwarf stars echo the ceaseless thunderous clapping of angels. The thousand thousand galaxies beyond us reverberate with the sounds of "Glorious grace! Glorious grace! Glorious grace!"
Are you a part of this universal APPLAUSE? Is God's grace to you GLORIOUS? Are you constantly calling for Grace Encores amongst the lost who have yet to learn how to really "put them together"?
"Lord, I applaud Your glorious grace! I am a blood-bought, made-holy, adopted by Deity, can't lose object of that LOVE that gives the opposite of what is deserved. May heart-applause fill my days until that endless day of eternity dawns."
Who's the Head Governs the How
When Christians emphasize the biblical teaching that wives are to submit to their husbands, aren't we creating an environment where abuse will flourish?
Answer: NOT if we teach the biblical teaching with biblical balance.
One passage where the biblical balance of the submission teaching is clearly taught is 1 Corinthians 11:3:
"But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God."
"Head" in this passage seems to refer to something like "authority." Paul most often uses it this way, especially when referring to Christ as the Head of the Church (e.g. Ephesians 1:22). God in His loving wisdom has set up relationships with an order of authority. This verse in 1 Corinthians 11 refers to that order in marriage and in Christ to man and God to Christ.
Isn't it dangerous for a wife to have her husband as an authority? NOT if that husband has any understanding that HIS HEAD is Christ! And isn't it repressive for a man to have Christ as his authority? NOT if he understands that even Christ has God the Father as His head. Did Christ model the life of a man lived under the repression or oppression of a higher authority? Not unless perfect freedom, perfect joy, perfect love, and sinless living could be considered repressed! Christ existed in perfect love and submission from eternity with the Father. Though equal with the Father, he lived in a submission that was "economic" in the sense that this is how the purposes of the Godhead would be accomplished. Living in constant obedience to the Father was the joy of the Son for the shared purposes of eternal redemption and glory.
Husbands, Christ is our head. May we learn to submit to His marvelous cross-proven, life-reaffirmed love. We can partner with Him for purposes that are eternal and redeeming, including the sanctification of our precious wives.
Wives, your husband is your head. The authority of Christ comes into your life in a significant way through him. Pray for him that he will understand and live in joyful submission to his Head, Christ, that he might imitate that always good authority in his life with you. And partner with him for God's purposes for your relationship and your family and your church.
Let us not shrink back from but lean into the relationships of authority and submission that God has ordained for redemptive life in this world.
Answer: NOT if we teach the biblical teaching with biblical balance.
One passage where the biblical balance of the submission teaching is clearly taught is 1 Corinthians 11:3:
"But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God."
"Head" in this passage seems to refer to something like "authority." Paul most often uses it this way, especially when referring to Christ as the Head of the Church (e.g. Ephesians 1:22). God in His loving wisdom has set up relationships with an order of authority. This verse in 1 Corinthians 11 refers to that order in marriage and in Christ to man and God to Christ.
Isn't it dangerous for a wife to have her husband as an authority? NOT if that husband has any understanding that HIS HEAD is Christ! And isn't it repressive for a man to have Christ as his authority? NOT if he understands that even Christ has God the Father as His head. Did Christ model the life of a man lived under the repression or oppression of a higher authority? Not unless perfect freedom, perfect joy, perfect love, and sinless living could be considered repressed! Christ existed in perfect love and submission from eternity with the Father. Though equal with the Father, he lived in a submission that was "economic" in the sense that this is how the purposes of the Godhead would be accomplished. Living in constant obedience to the Father was the joy of the Son for the shared purposes of eternal redemption and glory.
Husbands, Christ is our head. May we learn to submit to His marvelous cross-proven, life-reaffirmed love. We can partner with Him for purposes that are eternal and redeeming, including the sanctification of our precious wives.
Wives, your husband is your head. The authority of Christ comes into your life in a significant way through him. Pray for him that he will understand and live in joyful submission to his Head, Christ, that he might imitate that always good authority in his life with you. And partner with him for God's purposes for your relationship and your family and your church.
Let us not shrink back from but lean into the relationships of authority and submission that God has ordained for redemptive life in this world.
Friday, September 28, 2007
The Grass is Greener...Right Here!
In the NT church in Corinth there was this crazy, almost American, unsettledness that caused the members to think that the ideal spiritual life was...somewhere else. That is, if they were unmarried, marriage would be the entryway to a spiritual Eden. If they were married, especially to an unbeliever, the single life was the way up and in. If they were slaves...get free or remain a spiritual pygmy. Underneath it all there seemed to be this thought, not at all foreign to ME, that they could not realize the true freedom in Christ which was their lot unless their situation changed.
The Apostle Paul answers that thinking with a clear, settling, God-centered view of WHERE I AM:
"...Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him." 1Corinthians 7:17
Married or unmarried, working for someone else or self-employed, kids at home or empty-nester, senior citizen or teenager, college-degreed or street-smart, physically handicapped or tri-athlete, raised up in a godly home or a child of abuse, in an apartment or my own home, in the perfect church or a Corinthian-like mess, tight finances or picking fruit daily from the money tree...
The ultimate reason we are where we are is...the Lord. He has "assigned" us and "called" us to the place in life we occupy. Note: HE has assigned us and called us to this place. Not fate or chance or stupid choices (though there may have been plenty of them!!) or discrimination or Satanic evil. Why has He assigned us this place? That we may learn to walk with Him HERE, in humility and dependence. "So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain WITH GOD." 1 Corinthians 7:24
If God has assigned me this place then it is a place where GOD IS. It is a place where I can thrive spiritually and walk with Him. It is a place where all the promises of God apply. It is a place where the Holy Spirit of God will fill me with His fruit and gifts and help. It is a place where my cries to God will be heard as well as any other place on earth. It may NOT be EASY, but easy is not the way to spiritual growth.
May the Lord who assigns and calls to THIS PLACE free me to pursue Him NOW and HERE, believing that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. May He free me to take my eyes off of whoever or whatever I have charged with my stunted spiritual life and set them resolutely on Him. HE IS THE GREEN GRASS, wherever I am.
The Apostle Paul answers that thinking with a clear, settling, God-centered view of WHERE I AM:
"...Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him." 1Corinthians 7:17
Married or unmarried, working for someone else or self-employed, kids at home or empty-nester, senior citizen or teenager, college-degreed or street-smart, physically handicapped or tri-athlete, raised up in a godly home or a child of abuse, in an apartment or my own home, in the perfect church or a Corinthian-like mess, tight finances or picking fruit daily from the money tree...
The ultimate reason we are where we are is...the Lord. He has "assigned" us and "called" us to the place in life we occupy. Note: HE has assigned us and called us to this place. Not fate or chance or stupid choices (though there may have been plenty of them!!) or discrimination or Satanic evil. Why has He assigned us this place? That we may learn to walk with Him HERE, in humility and dependence. "So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain WITH GOD." 1 Corinthians 7:24
If God has assigned me this place then it is a place where GOD IS. It is a place where I can thrive spiritually and walk with Him. It is a place where all the promises of God apply. It is a place where the Holy Spirit of God will fill me with His fruit and gifts and help. It is a place where my cries to God will be heard as well as any other place on earth. It may NOT be EASY, but easy is not the way to spiritual growth.
May the Lord who assigns and calls to THIS PLACE free me to pursue Him NOW and HERE, believing that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. May He free me to take my eyes off of whoever or whatever I have charged with my stunted spiritual life and set them resolutely on Him. HE IS THE GREEN GRASS, wherever I am.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Hard-headed ministry
Has the Lord given you someone to minister to who is exceptionally challenging? It may be an unbeliever or a believer. Perhaps a spouse or teenage child or boss or even a fellow church or small group member.
Ever feel like giving up? Ever feel like their hard-headedness or hard-heartedness is going to win out?
Ezekiel had a whole NATION of hard-heads and hard-hearts to prophesy to. God told him on the front end of his ministry:
"But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me. Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart." Ezekiel 3:7
Well, so much for the glamor of ministry! Any bubble that Ezekiel had about the masses ooohing and ahhhhing over his prophecies was graciously popped by God before his prophetic ministry began. He knew what he was facing and it would take super-human persistence and endurance to do it well and finish well.
HOW could he serve a granite-headed people for years without throwing in the servant's towel?
God promised to make Ezekiel equal to the task.
"Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like emery harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house." Ezekiel 3:8-9
In essence, God said, "I have made you equal to the task. They will be resistant as stone, but I have given you a steel-will to keep speaking my word to them. They will give you looks that could kill, but I have given you flak-jacket heart that will keep looking to me."
God can and will make us as graciously hard-headed as sin can make others hard-headed and stubborn. He will make us hard-headed enough NOT to stop trusting Him for love and courage and compassion and wisdom and plain 'ole hang in there toughness.
Don't give up! Cry out to God for a hard-headed ministry.
Ever feel like giving up? Ever feel like their hard-headedness or hard-heartedness is going to win out?
Ezekiel had a whole NATION of hard-heads and hard-hearts to prophesy to. God told him on the front end of his ministry:
"But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me. Because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart." Ezekiel 3:7
Well, so much for the glamor of ministry! Any bubble that Ezekiel had about the masses ooohing and ahhhhing over his prophecies was graciously popped by God before his prophetic ministry began. He knew what he was facing and it would take super-human persistence and endurance to do it well and finish well.
HOW could he serve a granite-headed people for years without throwing in the servant's towel?
God promised to make Ezekiel equal to the task.
"Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like emery harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house." Ezekiel 3:8-9
In essence, God said, "I have made you equal to the task. They will be resistant as stone, but I have given you a steel-will to keep speaking my word to them. They will give you looks that could kill, but I have given you flak-jacket heart that will keep looking to me."
God can and will make us as graciously hard-headed as sin can make others hard-headed and stubborn. He will make us hard-headed enough NOT to stop trusting Him for love and courage and compassion and wisdom and plain 'ole hang in there toughness.
Don't give up! Cry out to God for a hard-headed ministry.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Ownership Comes at a Price
I love my pda. I have had my Tungsten T5 for about 2 1/2 years now and it is like a right arm to me. It is filled with study resources and tools and loads of pictures of the family and mission trips and schedule reminders. Between the device itself and the programs I have purchased and loaded it has COST ME PLENTY!! I am VERY careful to keep track of my T5. I have it with me almost all the time either in my fannypack (I am the nerdy local who looks like a tourist) or pocket. You might say I am JEALOUS over it. I am.
In 1Corinthians 6:19-20 we are reminded by the Apostle Paul that a great price has been paid for us by God and as a result we are not our own.
"...Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
Bought with a price. That price was the very life blood of God the Son, poured out in His unparalleled suffering of the cross. And that price was not paid so that I would be CALLED God's child and then live for myself, as though I still own the keys to the front door of my heart. No, the price has been paid so that I am no longer my own. The result? I am to live to glorify God in my body.
God rightfully owns me because He gave His Son for me. Therefore, He is jealous over me. He keeps close tabs on me. In fact, He is so jealous and so diligent to watch over me that He has taken upresidence WITHIN me! My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
All of this tells me:
In 1Corinthians 6:19-20 we are reminded by the Apostle Paul that a great price has been paid for us by God and as a result we are not our own.
"...Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
Bought with a price. That price was the very life blood of God the Son, poured out in His unparalleled suffering of the cross. And that price was not paid so that I would be CALLED God's child and then live for myself, as though I still own the keys to the front door of my heart. No, the price has been paid so that I am no longer my own. The result? I am to live to glorify God in my body.
God rightfully owns me because He gave His Son for me. Therefore, He is jealous over me. He keeps close tabs on me. In fact, He is so jealous and so diligent to watch over me that He has taken upresidence WITHIN me! My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
All of this tells me:
- This temple of God's should be kept HOLY. My mind and body should be free from junk reading and eating. The visual images I load into my mind's pda do not delete. The extra pounds I am carrying on my body at this time do not give me more physical "curb appeal" to God or others. If God himself is in residence in my body, I should keep it more clean than when I have special guests in my home.
- God has the right to the first and last decisions in every area of my life. I am not my own. My time is not my own. My money is not my own. My body is not my own. My talents and gifts are not my own. The direction of my thoughts is not my own. The response to irritating drivers is not my own. Wow, nothing is my own to use as I will but as HE wills. Why? I have been bought with a price.
- What a glorious love God has loved me with! Why would He spend the life of His Son to purchase me? Why? The answer is not in me. The answer is in the infinitely loving heart of God. He is an extravagant Lover. And He is jealous over what He has paid dearly for. Keeping sight of this beyond comprehension love makes personal holiness and bowing to Lordship a whole different matter.
My OWNER is the GREAT LOVER of my soul. Ownership came at a price for Him.
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