Tag Archives: love

one thing I do

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I had a friend who had a dream of following God.  For him, following God had a certain location to pursue, a certain amount of meditation to conduct, a certain amount of following God without having to follow anyone else. And then he got married. And then he wondered whether he could follow God while married. And now it looks like he’s deciding that he can’t.

It’s incredibly sad. It’s incredibly familiar.

The apostle Paul wanted to devote himself to knowing Christ. He wants to be completely identified with Christ. “This one thing I do,” he writes, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on” toward that goal.

My friend thought that meant not having “spiritual time” – Bible reading and prayer – interrupted by people. And many of us would agree with my friend.

But right before he talks about this consuming passion of his own, Paul encourages  us to the same humility of service that Christ had in living and dying. We try to rise in reputation. Jesus fell in reputation. Not so he could win points for martyrdom, like we often do. It was what he had to do.

And Paul knew that to know Jesus, to understand his work, to be with him, we need to live with and serve and be served by others.

As I am up in the middle of the night over and over with the dog, this one thing I do. As I am trying to figure out how to reload the drivers on this server, this one thing I do. As I am trying to concentrate on writing these words, this one thing I do.

It’s hard. It’s clarifying. And because we are finding Christ, it can be a delight.

Except the dog part.

Pray for me.

especially not after them

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Is it better to say “no” and then do what you are asked or is it better to say “yes” and then not get around to it?

That’s the heart of a “two brothers” story that Jesus tells. Their dad asks them to work in the vineyard. One argues, one agrees. One goes, one doesn’t.

I love this parable. I always have. I love how Jesus understands that people often think change their minds after they have time to think. I love how Jesus understands that people often say “yes” for all the wrong reasons.

There many place to go with this parable, but we  may miss where Jesus went.

The first brother represents tax collectors and prostitutes. More accurately, the tax collectors and prostitutes that have been talking to Jesus and that Jesus has been talking with for the past three years. The second brother represents religious leaders, those who have been arguing with Jesus for the past three years, those who are facing him at this moment.

Often, Jesus says, people will hear what God says and will reject it, will pursue their own way of living. Eventually, however,  many will change their minds and hearts. Often, Jesus says, other people will hear what God says and will accept it, but will then pursue their own way of living. This group will not have as much fun and as much pain, nor will they know the delight of finally obeying.

That part’s pretty obvious. Here’s the hard part.

“Even after you saw tax collectors and prostitutes be forgiven, you didn’t repent,” Jesus says. The religious people were too religious to admit they were as wrong as the irreligious people. Passive disobedience is as bad as active disobedience. “Good Christians” who don’t follow Jesus are worse than forgiven cheaters.

Life is short

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[First Friday guest post from Paul Merrill]

My mom died in June. She was a month shy of 80. Her life was long and full, by most standards.

Psalm 39:4 says:

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered -
how fleeting my life is.

She had a nearly full refrigerator. Her car insurance was paid for almost a year in advance. She was not planning to die. (Few of us do.) But all of her accounts were settled, in the relational sense. She had no regrets about those she needed to forgive.

How are you facing the rest of your days?

You have heard the concept of carpe diem – seize the day. We should live our life like each day may be our very last. That shouldn’t mean indulging in a hedonistic rampage of filling ourselves with all the pleasures we can grab. Rather it should mean loving those we know to the best of our abilities. And asking God to give us wisdom to know how to love those in our lives better – beyond our abilities.

It seems like almost every job provides us with a difficult person to relate to. Even if you work alone, you probably deal with vendors or clients. One co-worker stretches you in ways they don’t even know about.

Love them.

Pick up the phone. Call that old friend you haven’t spoken to in a while.

Love them.

There may be someone in your family you just can’t relax around. Speak to them. Clear the air.

Love them.

That homeless guy who’s parked on that same corner every morning on your way to work?

Love him.

That intimidating superior at work you just can’t relate to? Think of a way to humbly bridge the gap.

Love her.

You won’t regret it.

————

Paul is with his family in Texas this weekend for his mother’s memorial service. Please pray with them.

grinding them down

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Jesus was concerned about little children. He said that the road to greatness in the kingdom of heaven ran closer to the playground than the temple courts. And then, after telling the disciples to learn from children, Jesus got graphic:

“If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,” Jesus says, “it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

We are tempted to say, “Better than what, Jesus?” But if that is the good news, I don’t want to know the bad news. Instead, it is worth thinking about how to avoid the punishment altogether.

I thought about why Jesus would choose a millstone.

The obvious reason is the weight. I wonder, however, if he was thinking about the slow oppressive grinding that happens with our children sometimes. We push and push and push until they get angry. We live with such a difference between how we are in public and how we are at home that they abandon faith as mere hypocrisy, or worse. We are too lazy to help the small seeds of faith grow with encouragement and coaching, and they struggle to survive when faced with serious challenges.

Jesus looks at the result of faith corrupted or abandoned and says, “you wore them out by being a millstone, grinding away. Now wear the millstone.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why Jesus makes the point.

Start with the faith they have. Help it grow. Answer their questions. When you can’t, look it up. When they aggravate, show them how to respond well. When they struggle, love them. When they fail, hold them–and then teach them how to learn from God and others.

a new week

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“Each morning, remind yourself that, for whatever reason, God loves you.”

That’s what I told a few hundred people on Sunday.

On Mother’s Day, I preached. I wanted to have some simple application from Titus 2. I wanted to walk out with a simple list of doable actions that reflect what Paul tells Titus about how to live. I wanted. Not just the congregations.

Because you and I hear a lot about how to live. We hear a lot about how to follow. We say a lot about how to live. We say a lot about how to follow.

But lots of us, on any given day, don’t do nearly as much to follow Jesus as we think we should, and we think we should.

Our problem starts with thinking that we have to prove something to God, that we have to measure up in some way. And that first statement allows us to remind ouselves each day that we don’t.

Dont’?

Don’t have to measure up to God’s love. Don’t have to earn it. Don’t have to win it. But have to accept it.

That’s the hard part, some days. Actually accepting that you are loved creates a sense of obligation, it seems. It creates a sense that there is some next step, something that will need to be done. It means that in some way, some control is being lost.

What if, however, we are losing control of a situation which we never really were managing that well anyway? I don’t run my life very well. I don’t have control of the options, of other people, of the crises that will appear this week.

This week, we’ll look at the five actions I suggested this morning, starting here:

“Each morning, remind yourself that, for whatever reason, God loves you.”