February 26, 2009
You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, ”Here is your God!”
See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.
He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
Strength and gentleness.
The Sovereign Lord comes with power, and His arm rules for Him. Our God is strong. He is sovereign. He rules over the universe. He speaks and the universe comes into existence. His power is limitless. His sovereignty is absolute. All will bow before Him as Lord.
He tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young. Our God is gentle. He cares for us like a shepherd cares for His sheep. He holds us close to His heart. He carries us when we are weak. He tenderly picks us up when we have fallen. He leads us to places of rest.
Without strength, God would only be a sympathizing cosmic spectator who could do nothing to protect us from death or destruction. Without gentleness, He would be an absolute tyrant demanding submission and obedience without regard for our hurts or weaknesses. But God is both…therefore we can rejoice…we can trust…we can hope.
The combination of strength and gentleness is important for us as well. To become godly, I believe, is to begin to model this balance in our own lives.
Through God’s grace and the filling of the Spirit, we gain power, boldness, confidence in the midst of a darkened world that needs God’s light. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). And through that same grace and empowerment, we gain a tender heart that sees people through the eyes of Jesus Christ and exercises kindness and gentleness in both our words and actions. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23). Without this balance, we can be pretty sure that we are operating on our own power and for our own agendas.
Lord, give me boldness today to live and proclaim your message to others. Give me tenderness today to see the needs of those around me and minister Your grace and love to them.
February 22, 2009
“Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we aknow in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.”
Prophecy and tongues were sign gifts, meant to be evidence of the gospel message to those who would hear it. Paul says that one day, these gifts would cease, and I believe we live in a time period when this cessation of sign gifts has already occurred. If sign gifts are no longer valid, what evidence is there for the truth of the gospel? Love. Methodologies may fail; words may fail. Love never fails. When we show the agape love described in the previous verses, to each other and the world around us, it serves as a sign that the message we carry is the truth.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)
February 19, 2009
Read, memorize, and meditate on 1 Corinthians 13:5 today…
Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (NIV)
[Love] does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil… (NKJV)
The apostle Paul adds four more characteristics of true, God-empowered love.
Love is not rude. It does not act in a way to turn people off. It acts with graciousness.
Love is not self-seeking. Rather love seeks the benefit of others.
Love is not provoked. Love does not have a chip on its shoulder, looking for a reason to be offended, ready to fly off the handle.
Love keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not keep score. It harbors no bitterness from yesterday’s offenses.
This verse forces us to ask ourselves…”Do people around me see me as gracious or rude? Do I really care about those I encounter during the day? Am I easily offended? Do people have to walk on eggshells around me? Am I still harboring hurts and holding on to resentment from the past?”
Lord, cleanse my heart and fill me with Your love. May I display your love in some small way to those I encounter today.
February 18, 2009
Read and meditate on 1 Corinthians 13:4 today…
Love suffers long and is kind; does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up (NKJV).
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud (NIV).
After telling us of the absolute priority of love in 13:1-3, the apostle Paul describes love in verses 4-7. What does love look like? Since I can’t really judge my motives accurately, how can I see whether my actions are loving or not? Here is the measuring stick of love. Take whatever you do, whatever you think is “loving” or “right in God’s eyes,” and see if it matches this description of love. If it does not, then, in God’s eyes, it means nothing and gains nothing.
The first five characteristics of true God-centered love are as follows…
Love suffers long. Love hangs in there even when times get tough. It does not easily give up nor does it develop resentment and bitterness when things don’t go its way.
Love is kind. Love seeks the benefit of another person and acts in kindness.
Love does not envy. It does not resent the spotlight being on someone else.
Love does not parade itself. It does not talk and talk about itself. It does not call attention to itself.
Love is not puffed up. It does not try to outdo others or elevate itself above others. it does not seek to justify itself by criticizing others.
This kind of love is not natural to us. When we are mistreated or rejected, this is not the kind of response that naturally wells up inside of us. But this is the kind of love that God calls us to and enables us to show when we walk in dependence on Him and in the power of His Spirit.
February 17, 2009
We will spend this week reading and reflecting on 1 Corinthians 13.
Read and meditate on verses 1-3 this morning…
1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
These verses issue a sobering wake up call. They force us to ask, “Why I am I doing what I am doing?” It is easy to get caught up in externals. We judge spirituality by eloquence, acts of service, “passion,” number of souls won, Bible knowledge, speaking in tongues, visionary faith, bold speech, growing churches, financial generosity, or the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life in martyrdom. God sees things differently. He looks past the externals right into our hearts. Man looks at the outward appearance but the LORD looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). God sees the motive behind our actions. Why are we doing what we are doing?
The scary thing is that it is possible to preach God’s Word, do great acts of service, sing passionate worship songs, win others to the Lord, know the Bible inside and out, and even die for “our faith” and still not really know the Lord. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:22-23).
I don’t think the point in these passages is to make us ultra self-conscious and paranoid about every one of our actions. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:4-5 that he can’t even accurately judge his own motives for the things that he does, much less judge the motives of others. Instead, I think God is simply trying to get us re-centered on Him. Like Martha in Luke 10, we lose the Great Commandment in the midst of all our spiritual busyness. We read more, pray more, sing more, serve more, talk more, protest more…and somehow miss the “one thing” that is needed–loving God, enjoying Him, and loving others. We are constantly getting off kilter and then spending a lot of energy justifying why our off kilter position is really the position that everyone should be in. God says, “Stop! Who are you to judge another man’s servant? You follow Me. You love Me and learn to love others through Me.”
Each day we have to preach the gospel to ourselves again. I am a sinner. I fall short. And I need God’s grace which has been abundantly poured out through Jesus Christ.
Lord Jesus, fill me with Your Spirit today so that I walk in love and not in self-promotion or self-righteousness.
February 15, 2009
“For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”
The phrase that came to mind as I read this passage was “willful obedience”. For most of the verse, Jesus is making the point that his sacrificial death was completely voluntary. No one was forcing him to do it. He laid down his life by his own free will, insisting that he had the authority to do so. At the end of the passage, however, Jesus says that this was the “charge” he had received from the Father. The translation “charge” makes it seem as though it were just a responsibility he had, but the Greek word actually means commandment or order and was linked to the commandments in the Mosaic and Jewish law. How could Jesus lay down his life voluntarily when he was ordered to do so by God the Father?
We often speak of willful disobedience, especially when a child knows something is wrong to do and blatantly does it anyway, but we rarely talk of willful obedience. The word “authority” in John 10:18 can also be translated as “right” or “liberty”. Willful obedience is knowing that you have full authority/freedom/right to do otherwise, but doing what you are supposed to do anyway. In John 15:14, Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” This isn’t spiritual extortion or conditional love. It is the idea that if you truly love Jesus, you will choose to obey him even though you have the freedom not to.
Jesus was never a “do as I say, not as I do” type teacher. The 2 verses preceding John 15:14 say, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus willfully obeyed the Father’s command to lay down his life for mankind. We are to willfully obey Jesus’ command to lay down our lives (wills, rights, liberties, agendas) for each other.
Obedience is not the antithesis of freedom. Obedience is the perfect fulfillment of freedom. It is choosing to conform our will to match God’s will, and only when we do this, we will truly know what it is to be free.
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Phil. 2:5-8)
February 14, 2009
This passage seems strangely appropriate for Valentine’s Day. In verse 14, Jesus says, “I know my own and my own know me”. Jesus is not just referring to some abstract head knowledge here. He is talking about an intimate, relational knowledge. The Greek word “know” that he uses has more of an experiential connotation, including being used as a euphemism for sexual intercourse. It is the idea expressed by Paul in Ephesians 5:31-32: “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
This idea is strengthened in the next verse, where Jesus adds, “just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” Jesus’ level of acquaintance with us is on the level of a man and wife and the level that the members of the Godhead have with each other. As Creator, Jesus knows every detail about his creation. He knows our past, present, and future. He knows what makes us tick, what drives our thoughts and actions. This is a very comforting thought.
There is also a convicting part of this passage, however. Much like marriage, our relationship with Jesus is not a one-way street. If one spouse works to know everything there is to know about their mate, while the other puts forth zero effort, it is not a healthy relationship. It is not enough to rest on the fact that Jesus knows us intimately. We must work to know him as well: “…and my own know me.” This naturally brings up the question, “Do I have an intimate, marriage-like knowledge of Jesus?”
Today is a day that we celebrate the intimacy we have in our earthly relationships and strive to improve those relationships. May it also be a day to celebrate the intimate relationship we have with our Savior, and may we strive to come to a more intimate, experiential, relational knowledge of him.
February 12, 2009
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
All “saviors” and “messiahs” that come have one primary goal…gain followers. However, their goal is ultimately to increase their power and inflate their ego at the expense of their followers. The followers are a means to an end not an end in itself. The followers seem cared for until the leader has what he wants and then they are expendable. History is replete with such “saviors.”
In contrast, Jesus comes not to gain power but to limit His power, to be a servant. He comes not to use the sheep for His gain but to enrich the sheep through His sacrifice. No sheep is expendable in His sight.
I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.
Jesus voluntarily entered our world to offer us life. Real life. Eternal life. Abundant life.
Two words really stand out to me…
May. God’s life is never forced upon us. We must choose to trust the Shepherd. Jesus offers His life to us but we must decide if we want it or not. Sometimes we would rather “go it alone.” Choose our own way. Find our own ”salvation.” Unfortunately, in our quest for “personal freedom,” we find ourselves as prime targets to the thieves in the world who are eager to promise us that which they do not possess in order to use us for their own selfish purposes.
Abundantly. The word in Greek is perissos, which means “over and above, more than is necessary, superadded.” In Jesus, we find a life overflowing. If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him (John 7:37-38).
Jesus comes to bring us life. He also comes to bring us abundant life. I believe Jesus separates the two because they are two separate experiences. We receive His life at salvation when we exchange our sin for His righteousness. But then, as we learn to follow Him more and more, we experience His abundant life, the overflowing experience of joy and peace that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Lord, fill me with Your Spirit today so that I may overflow with thanksgiving and joy toward You and toward others.