Love Each Other As If Your Life Depended On It

Here is an absolutely awesome scripture from 1 Peter 4.  It’s verses 7- 11.

‘Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted.  Stay wide awake in prayer.  Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it.  Love makes up for practically anything.  Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless- cheerfully.  Be generous with the different things that God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it; Did God give you the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.’

This is the Word of God talking here.  If when you were reading this, it did something inside of you, if you got excited or smiled a little bit, know that what you were feeling was something that God intended for you to feel.  He put that scripture in the Word for YOU.  He is very intentional.

So know that when it says things like “love each other as if your life depended on it” that we should at least give it a shot.  Know that when it clearly says that you should “be quick to give a meal to the hungry”, that a verse like that requires a response.

In a culture where we are impulse shoppers, we know full well what that part of the verse is saying.  If we are quick to buy a pair of jeans because they are on sale and “you’ve been wanting them for a long time”, and then when you walk outside and you are hesitant to offer something to the poor because both your impulse and resources have already been spent, know that there is problem there.  Because after all, the Word does say that we are to BE QUICK to share with the poor.  It doesn’t say “be quick to consume what you want”.

Why? This is what his word shows us.

God, the Father, saw in Isaiah 59 that there was a lack of justice.  It broke His heart and He did something about it.  He, Himself, threw on armor and took up a sword and addressed oppression.

Jesus, the Son and Savior, saw that people were beaten down, blind and without hope.  It broke His heart, so He did something about it.  He, Himself, came down and let some sinners nail Him to a cross. That hurt Him…a lot. But you’re worth it.

We, guided by the Holy Spirit, see that there are tens of thousands of homeless people in our cities.  We see that there are over 15 millions AIDS orphans.  We see that there are 30,000+ kids that die every day because of poverty/starvation.  Does it break our hearts?  God has called us Priests,(1 Peter 2) and Jesus said that if we love God then we can do even greater things than He did (John 14:12).

Someone’s salvation lies in whether or not we feel like responding to the call of Jesus.

“Love each other as if your life depended on it.”  It does.

Be Blessed.  Make sure that we do the stuff that Jesus talked about and make sure that everyone knows that it was His idea, not yours.

Giving To The Poor And Why…

 This what the Psalmist says:

Oh, the joys of those who are kind to the poor! The LORD rescues them when they are in trouble. The LORD protects them and keeps them alive. He gives them prosperity in the land and rescues them from their enemies. The LORD nurses them when they are sick and restores them to health. (Psalm 41:1-3)

They share freely and give generously to those in need. Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor. (Psalm 112:9)

This is what Proverbs says:
It is a sin to belittle one’s neighbor; blessed are those who help the poor. (Proverbs 14:21)

Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but helping the poor honors him. (Proverbs 14:31)

This is what John the Baptist says:
John replied, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.” (Luke 3:11)

This is what Paul says:
So we have urged Titus, who encouraged your giving in the first place, to return to you and encourage you to finish this ministry of giving. Since you excel in so many ways—in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, and your love from us—I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving. (II Corinthians 8:6-7)

Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God. So two good things will result from this ministry of giving—the needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met, and they will joyfully express their thanks to God. As a result of your ministry, they will give glory to God. For your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ. (II Corinthians 9:11-13)

This is what Peter says:
Cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. (I Peter 4:9)

This is what John says:
If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sisterin need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? (I John 3:17)

This is what James says:
Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. (James 2:16-17)

 This is what the first followers of Jesus did:

And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need.  (Acts 2:44-45)

There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need. (Acts 4:34-35)

This is what Jesus says:
“Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.”  (Matthew 5:42)

“And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” (Matthew 10:42)

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’ Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ (Matthew 25:34-40)

Late in the afternoon the twelve disciples came to him and said, “Send the crowds away to the nearby villages and farms, so they can find food and lodging for the night. There is nothing to eat here in this remote place.” But Jesus said, “You feed them.” (John 9:12)

Then he turned to his host. “When you put on a luncheon or a banquet,” he said, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you.” (Luke 14:12-14)

“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” (Luke 12:33)

“Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your earthly possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.”  (Luke 16:9)

-I read these verses (and there are over 500 more just like them), and I can’t help think of a what Soren Kierkegaard said a long time ago:

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

His Will Isn’t The Point

Steven Furtick is the Pastor of Elevation Church in North Carolina. This is something he talked about a while ago and I believe it’s a good thing for us all to know and remember…

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.

Proverbs 25:2

There’s a reason God’s will in specific situations is so difficult to know sometimes. There’s a reason that not everything is black and white. It can be difficult to discern God’s will for a lot of situations.

Who to date.
Where to go to college.
Who to marry.
Where to move.
What job to take.

And it’s not because you’re not praying. You’re probably praying a lot. It’s not because you don’t want to know His will. You probably aren’t lacking that desire.

But according to this verse in Proverbs, it’s because God conceals.
But why? After all, that seems counterintuitive to God’s purposes and using you in them.

The reason isn’t because God doesn’t want you to know His will. He wants you to know it more than you want to know it. God has something so much greater for you instead.

Him.

God’s not up in heaven hiding His will, hoping you’ll never be able to find it. But He does play hide and seek. He doesn’t just want us to find His will, He wants us to find Him in the process. Because if His will was in plain view, we would seek it instead of seeking Him.

That’s why he conceals it. That’s why it’s so hard.

The point isn’t for God to make His will plain. His will isn’t the main objective. He is the main objective. He wants you to discover Him above all else.

As you run after God and his good, pleasing, and perfect will, remember these two truths:

God isn’t the shortcut to your best life. He is your best life.
God doesn’t want to give you the guide for your life. He wants to be your Guide.

The scariest possibility for your life isn’t getting God’s will wrong. It’s getting God’s will right but barely coming to know God in the process.

You could love the right woman but lose your first love.
You could find the right career but then make it your god.

That’s why He doesn’t just write His will for you in the clouds. At the end of the process, He wants you to know something far greater than what you should do next with your life.

He wants you to know who He is.

The Church: Then vs. Now

Acts 2:44 shows us the authenticity of the early church through the practical ways they loved each other, “…All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved”.

The Christians were serious about something when they started meeting…relationships. Not the, “You buy your coffee, I’ll buy mine. Then, we’ll dream about how good life would be if we really did wake up from a coma and Channing Tatum was our husbands” kind of relationships (Guys just talk about being Channing Tatum). They sold their possessions to take care of the poor and needy in their own neighborhoods. Everyone shared everything. If you have enough, I have enough. If you are hungry, I am hungry. You get the idea.

It’s rare to see churches (And I mean the people) living this lifestyle out today. We can’t seem to get passed the struggle of giving “our” ten percent. We walk by the homeless OR someone in our own church who we know can’t pay the bills and we pray for them, “God give them a miracle…(but don’t let that miracle come from me, because that will cost me something).”

Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 6:11-13:

Dear, Dear <insert your name here>, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life.   We didn’t fence you in.  The smallness you feel comes from within you.  Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way.  I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection.  Open your lives.  Live openly and expansively.

Guys, remember when you used to spend your weeknights playing video games and wondering when the girl of your dreams would finally realize you spending countless hours killing zombies was actually a very admirable thing to do? Girls, remember when your weeknights consisted of mulling over, “Does he like me, doesn’t he like me” and writing blogs about how men aren’t the “men” they’re supposed to be.

That’s the smallness Paul is writing about. The first church understood the cost of following Christ and “loving your neighbor as yourself”. See, many of our biggest problems are what we’re going to wear and how it makes our thighs look. We’re so busy thinking about what pair of shoes we’re going to buy next that we forget our brothers and sisters who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from. I can’t help but look back and be pretty ashamed of my life before Jesus came in and ruined it (in the best of ways).  I look at the life and death of Jesus and now see the beauty of it.  Jesus told us to love God and love people. Commands like that require a response. We see it lived out in Acts

We can live it out now.

Love

‘I’ve found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said “Journeys end in lovers meeting.” What an extraordinary thought. Personally, I have not experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had. I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said “love is blind”. Now that is something I know to be true. For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course love can also be found, even if “just for the night”. And then, there’s another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert. Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded.’

I understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible. And how it can actually ache in places you didn’t know you had inside you. It doesn’t matter how many new haircuts you get, or gyms you join, or how many glasses of merlot or how many beers you drink with your friends… you still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood and, how in the heck for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy. Sometimes you can even convince yourself that someone will see the light and show up at your door. But the reality is people fail. We are never going to stop letting others down, and others are never going to stop letting you down.

BUT…there is hope.

John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world…” did you see that? He loved, not just Jeff, Billy, or Suzie, not just the good people, or Americans, or the Jews. He loved the world. He loved you. “….that he gave his only begotten son,” again, he gave his son Jesus, which was God, to take your and my punishment, that we may be reconciled with God. “That whosever…” that means you, you’re mean neighbor, and the Muslims across the world. “believes in him, shall not perish but have everlasting life”. Remember when you feel like no one is there…God is. When you feel you aren’t loved…God loves you. When you feel all alone…God is there. He came into this world, was tempted, bruised just like you and me, abandon, scared, suffered, and died; for you and me. But he rose again. And he is alive, in you and me. He is, was, and is to come. His love NEVER fails. You my dear friends are loved beyond measure. Be blessed today and know that the God who made the stars, space, sky, light, dark, and the same God that gives you life everyday, is deeply, Deeply, DEEPLY…

In Love With You.

Tis The Season

God has been doing some awesome things this holiday season (just as He has always done).  It’s great to think (once again) we didn’t win the “war on CHRIST-mas”, but yet He loves us just the same. I saw some signs for “X-mas” trees on the side of the road, but I don’t think it bothers God.  He’s over it.

But He isn’t over US.. He doesn’t care about us putting the Christ back in Christmas; He is trying to put the “Christ” back in Christian.  And He is using you!
Every thing that you and I do, as Sons and Daughters, either purifies the name of God or confuses the meaning of it. He is using US to set things straight.

As a part of the Christmas season my church decided to give away 25,000 Bibles. That’s a lot of people who are going to find out that the God who created the galaxies also created them…and loves them.

Hope your holidays are spent reminiscing love…not slogans.  

What did Adam say on the day before Christmas?
It’s Christmas, Eve!

Tis The Season.

 

The “L” Word

Have you ever been in love? Real love? Maybe the kind of love that excites you when that special someone asks you to do something for him or her? The kind of love that, without hesitation, you’d gladly go well out of your way to skip a meal, stay up late, ruin your already planned schedule, comb your hair, and spend more money then you’ve budgeted all so you can give something special to that special someone? It’s the kind of love that makes you think less of yourself and more for someone else. It’s the kind of love that makes commands like Galatians 6:2 feel really easy.

So…I wonder why we get so upset when Jesus asks us to do something for him. I mean, if my really pretty (because she will be) girlfriend (imaginary at the time being) asks me to run to the store cause she doesn’t want to, I’d be getting in the car, heading to the store before she could finish her sentence. But when God asks me to do something, I usually interrupt Him with “God, you sure you’re talking to me?” before He can even finish asking. It’s like, “God, I’ll gladly go out of my way for my job where I’ll get noticed, or for this pretty girl I met at church (who doesn’t even know my name) but do I really have to _______________ for you?” (You fill in the blank)

Here’s what the disciples did about their love for God when God allowed some hard times (and physical things) to fall on them in Acts 5:17, “The high priest and his friends, who were Sadducees, reacted with violent jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in jail…” Fast forward to Acts 5:40b, “They called in the apostles and had them flogged. Then they ordered them to never again speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go. The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus.” All of that makes sense until you get to the word “rejoicing”. How could they leave rejoicing? Being flogged isn’t the same thing as when your mom or dad used to spank you for spitting on your brother (I’m not proud of that). These guys had the flesh ripped off their backs and ribs. So, did God just not allow them to really feel the flesh being ripped off their bodies? No. They rejoiced because they were in love with God! They felt every ounce of pain given them.

Paul writes this in 2 Corinthians 11:23b-28, “I have worked harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily pressure because of my concern for all the churches…” Paul sounds crazy. But I think love does that to us. Love doesn’t make us think too rationally. I mean even God loves us in ways that make no logical sense. He gave up heaven for earth. He gave up his immortality for death. He gave up perfection for our sin. He gave up a Kings throne for a sinners cross. He gave Himself for us. Really, He gave up all those things for…love (John 3:16). God doesn’t just say He loves us…He shows it. Maybe we don’t have to complain so much when we have the chance to do the same for Him.