Tagged: Love
Ebenezer and Church
For those of you who have followed this blog during the past year, this post is coming a little bit out of the blue. I haven’t written anything since mid-October. Since I finished blogging my way through The Bible’s story, I haven’t had a clear sense of direction for this blog, so I haven’t written.
Today’s post is designed to connect me with the high school students at my new church. When we get together today, we will be talking about church, and I’ll give them a chance to get online and respond to the following thoughts from The Bible.
Your comments are welcome too.
Hebrews 3:12-14
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
Hebrews 10:23-25
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
It sounds like the stakes are high – we need to encourage each other! What do you think it means to be “hardened by sin’s deceitfulness”? What might that look like?
What character qualities, gifts, and abilities do you notice in yourself that might encourage other people who are part of our church or part of God’s family?
God’s Tolerance for Evil
The ancient serpent makes his final appearance in the third-to-the-last chapter of The Bible.
How is it that Satan is even allowed in our story at this point?
By the time this chapter of our story plays out, human beings will have been living the story for thousands of years. And, evil continues to darken our story.
- Disease and accidents taking the lives of children.
- Unspeakable crimes perpetrated against decent, vulnerable people.
- Seething anger erupting everyday in violent acts – both small and large.
- Lonely people diminishing and dying in hopelessness.
- Whole populations of people subjugated by powerful people and systems.
And, God tolerates this evil.
What kind of God would do this?
. . . More than a question – an accusation.
Yet, Revelation 20 depicts a climax in which thousands of years of evil will be made right.
One could read this chapter and conclude that God will make things right by putting some people in Hell and other people in Heaven. But, please don’t miss the fact that Jesus is prominent in this chapter. He reigns. He Himself will be the complete answer to the question, “What kind of God would tolerate evil?”
He will prove to be the complete expression of human beings’ dignity and of God’s power, love, and justice.
If The Bible’s story is true, everything will, in fact, be made right in Jesus.
Please Read Revelation 20. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2020&version=NIV
Justice and Love
Justice and love collided violently.
On the cross. When Jesus died.
When He rose from the dead, ultimate justice and the triumph of love were guaranteed.
And, Jesus will return
to complete both justice and love.
Please Read Revelation 19. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2019&version=NIV
Apocalypse
According to The Bible, our story moves with both direction and intention.
God is moving His relationship with humanity toward completion through Jesus. The book of Revelation portrays this drive toward completion powerfully.
Judgment and justice, both holy and horrifying.
Faithfulness, love, victory.
Restoration.
Completion.
Jesus appears in chapter one,
. . .the firstborn from the dead. . . .
His appearance is astonishing.
And, He begins the apocalypse – the revealing of our story’s completion.
Please Read Revelation 1. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%201&version=NIV
Love Drives
My telling of The Bible’s story is nearing its end. After today, four posts from the book of Revelation remain.
In the end, what will be missing from this telling of our story are the chapters that have been, and will be, lived between the book of Acts and Jesus’ return. However, in Acts 20, we can look at the apostle Paul and see what will drive The Big Story into those future chapters.
Love.
Paul is determined to get to Jerusalem. But on his way there, he stops in Miletus and sends word to the elders in Ephesus. He wants them to come to him.
And, for the last several hours that they have together, the memories, tears, and warnings they share speak of a deep love that developed over the three years when Paul lived with them.
Then, turning their attention to the future, Paul reminds them why they have been endowed with such great love:
“Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood.”
Paul wants love – the kind of love demonstrated by Jesus on the cross – to drive his friends in Ephesus.
It’s what should drive Jesus’ followers through the generations.
Please Read Acts 20:13-38. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2020:13-38&version=NIV
Stooping Powerfully
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God. . . .
What demonstration of power should follow a statement like this?
What world-changing move?
Jesus washes His disciples’ feet.
This is Jesus’ way. And, He makes it clear that He expects His disciples to follow Him on this way; humbly serving each other and distinguishing themselves with their love for each other.
All the while, He is preparing to submit to a plan set in motion by a traitor – one of His closest friends.
Please Read John 13. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2013&version=NIV
God’s Thrill
Please Read Luke 15. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2015&version=NIV
In The Big Story, the big problem is that human beings are dead; humanity no longer has the breath of God, the Holy Spirit.
However, God has not given up on people. He is patiently, persistently accomplishing His Death-to-Life Project.
Through Jesus, God is moving, very personally, toward humanity. This is turning out to be both wonderful and intolerable for dead human beings in Israel.
The noise level in The Gospels seems to be rising – a din of both praise and criticism for Jesus. One day, as tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around Him, and as Pharisees were criticizing Him for the company He was keeping, Jesus’ voice penetrated the noise.
He told them that God was moving toward them – all of them.
And, it was God’s thrill to find them.
It is God’s thrill to find us.
Being Religious, Being Forgiven
Please read Luke 7:36-50. Link to the passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%207:36-50&version=NIV
Religion helps you know if you are getting things right.
So, when Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus to dinner, and an uninvited woman showed up, Simon was able to size up the situation quickly. He knew the woman. She had a reputation for living “a sinful life.” Jesus had a reputation for being a prophet. She began to express affection for Jesus in a way that was, to say the least, inappropriate. And, Jesus allowed it. He received her.
Neither Jesus nor the woman were getting things right.
But, Jesus wanted Simon to take a second look at the things that were going on in his home. He wanted Simon to see what being religious had looked like that afternoon, and He wanted him to see what being forgiven had looked like that afternoon.
Jesus wanted Simon to see what love looked like.
He also assured the woman that she was forgiven.
Could He do that?
The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
What an important question!
When Religion and God Didn’t Mix
ca. 760 BC
The people of Israel could be religious, but it turned out that their religion didn’t have much to do with God.
The prophet, Amos, told the people what God was seeing in Israel; a religion of personal preferences and empty ritual, lacking love and justice. Amos warned them that they were headed away from God, toward ruin.
Please read Amos 5:18-27. Online access: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=amos+5%3A18-27&version=NIV
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