I LOVE YOU…THERE I SAID IT – April 27

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

 “I love you!”, my friend professed as I turned to leave.

Oh, man…why did he go there?

“I have a profound appreciation for you, also,” was the perfunctory reply I dared not utter since  “love”  hung in the air.

I struggled for an appropriate response as milliseconds turned toward awkwardness.

Why could I not respond with, “I love you too”?
Why does professing our love from a brother in Christ seem so weird?
Why couldn’t we  just hit each other on the shoulder and that be enough?

I mustered up a weak, “me too,” as I made for the door.

Few phrases cause me more social angst than a profession of brotherly love from a non-confidant. I might have been scarred by the Bud Light commercials from the mid-90’s (I Love You Man).

The problem arises from my cultural interpretation of the implied meaning of love.  Love as defined by Dictionary.com:

1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
4. a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

I know intellectually what the Bible teaches regarding love.

The second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  (Mark 12:31)

These things I command you, so that you will love one another.  (John 15:17)

Love one another with brotherly affections.  (Romans 12:9)

Owe no one anything, except to love each other…  (Romans 13:8)

Let brotherly love continue. (Hebrews 13:1)

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart… (1 Peter 1:12)

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.  (1 Peter 4:8)

Greet one another with the kiss of love…  (1 Peter 5:14)

Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.  (1 John 2:10)

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:11)

If anyone says, “I love God”, and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  (1 John 4:20)

Our culture has skewed the meaning of love to such an extent that I struggle with the emotional aspect of love. I can intellectually know that I should tell my brother in Christ that I love him but a mental checklist suppresses my feelings:

Do I have a profoundly tender, passionate affection for this other person?
…Nope.

Do I feel a warm personal attachment or deep affection for this person?
…Not really.

Do I feel a sexual passion or desire for this person?
…Definitely not.

The inevitable conclusion is that I don’t feel the profound emotional response of love for this person as I have come to know what those feelings should entail. This conclusion makes any reciprocal profession of love seem less than genuine (Rom. 12:9). How can I love them…I barely know them?  That makes it weird.  Weirdness goes off the scale in trying to tell a sister in Christ that she is loved by me.  And to just complicate it more, consider the implications of the command to love our enemies.

But I say to you who hear, Love our enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  (Luke 6:27)

If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? Fore even sinners do the same.  (Luke 6:32)

If they truly are our enemy, than all the inherent meanings of love are turned upon their head. Our love must be genuine. It must flow from a heart that truly feels love. Therefore, we need to change our definition of love.  C.S. Lewis has aided my personal definition transition. He defined love as:

Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.
~Answers to Questions on Christianity,” God in the Dock .

When we remove the societal demand for emotional affection from the definition of love, we begin to gain a better understanding of how to practically live in genuine love for those who are acquaintances, distant neighbors, or an enemy.

When I love someone, wishing for that person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained, my actions become those defined by love (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

Love is patient and kind
…because that leads to their ultimate good.

Love does not envy or boast
…because that will not lead to their ultimate good.

Love is not arrogant or rude
…because that will detract from their ultimate good.

Love does not insist on its own way
…because that is the way to their ultimate good.

Love is not irritable or resentful
…because that will detract from their ultimate good.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing
…because that will not lead to their ultimate good.

Love rejoices with the truth
…because therein lies their ultimate good.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things for the ultimate good of those we love.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life.
(John 3:16)

God loved us while we were yet enemies because He desired our ultimate good and He accomplished it.

I  genuinely want that for everyone. I genuinely wish that all would come to Christ. I genuinely wish that all my family, friends, acquaintances, and enemies would come to their ultimate good. I don’t want to do anything that would be a stumbling block to anyone’s salvation or sanctification.

Based on this more appropriate definition of love, I do love people even though I find it sort of weird to express it.  However, expressing our love for one another is important.

Therefore, I want to express to all those who are reading this blog:

I LOVE YOU!

PRAYER: Father, thank you for first loving me.  Thank you for desiring my ultimate good and working out everything to that end.  Thank you for enabling me to love others – even my enemies.  Help me to to desire their ultimate good.  Lord, I lift up my enemies to you in love – give them their ultimate good, which is to know you. Father, make me a loving person in all ways and at all times.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen

Just to clarify, I love you …in an unromantic, less than platonic,  non-sexual, slug you in the shoulder sort of brotherly love …
that genuinely and earnestly wishes  the ultimate good for you,  that Jesus Christ, will flow in and through your life.

I know … it just seemed a little weird.
(I am working on it.)

“FEARING TO FEAR” – Dec 13

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  Genesis 1:1

I gazed up at the night sky on my drive home from work the other day.  It was an incredible display – stars deep and bright posing a mysterious question that challenged exploration and elicited awe.  The fullness of the expanse shrunk the office entanglements that still clung to my consciousness.  The burdens and responsibilities of a small business owner failed to rise above the trivial when confronted by the breath and complexity of this natural world painted across the black canvas of a night sky.

(Image: Yayoi Kusama  I Who Have Arrived In Heaven )

I felt a familiar sense of fear as I gawked at that night sky.

The implications of creation that come from a clear night sky are daunting upon contemplation.  We live in a world of intricate detail and minute precision.  It is a world of impassable distances and staggering scale.  Our discoveries reveal how much we do not know or understand.  There are many theories of how all that surrounds us came to be.  Most of these theories demand a faith of the adherent that is greater than any religion.  They yield to these theories to avoid the natural response of the alternative.  The natural response to contemplating this world as the product of a Creator’s hand is trepidation.

lrargerich / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

The realization that we are not alone should be jarring.

The presence of a Creator diminishes all of the accomplishments of man.

The theories and physical laws of human intellects climbing the heights of knowledge appear as mere children’s stories in contrast to the knowledge of a Creator who caused the ordering of those laws.

We lay defenseless before a Creator who gave the sun its energy.

We are but grains of sand on a limitless beach when the timeless reach of an infinite Creator is considered.

A living and active God, who has the power to create, changes the world that we live in.

Who can stand before one such as He?
What strength must one have to contend with the One who has created?
What claim can be made of the One who is without peer?

j-dub1980(THANK YOU FOR 100k+ Views) / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Sanity demands a response of the created for their Creator.

Fear is the sane response to the power of the Creator of the scale and scope of our world.
Fear is the reasoned emotion to the incomprehensibility of the Creator who speaks matter into existence.
Fear of Him who created the heavens and earth should be what all people feel.

Thankfully, the created were not left in the uncertainty of the knowledge of a Creator’s existence, absent his character – that would be terrifying.

God has revealed himself throughout scripture.  He revealed Himself generally through His creation but specifically through His prophets, disciples, apostles and Son.  He has shown Himself to be a Creator who abounds in grace and mercy for those He has created.  He has proven Himself faithful even when His creation was unfaithful.  He has demonstrated patience in response to blasphemy.  He displayed the greatest love ever known.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  (John 3:16-17)

However, the revelation of the Creator through scripture begins with fear.  I do not think that it was happenstance that the first verse of the Bible proclaims God as the creator of the heavens and earth.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.  His praise endures forever!  (Psalm 111:10)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Proverbs 1:7)

All decisions begin with knowledge.  God wills us to be knowledgeable because true knowledge of the Creator leads to us to a savior.  I do not believe that a sane person who truly believes in creator God, who knows their unrighteousness, who has had their mind open to redemption of the blood of Christ on the cross, will ever reject the redemptive plan that the Creator knew when He hung the star of Bethlehem in the night sky.

The beginning of that journey to salvation begins with the fear of the Lord, the creator of heaven and earth.  Until we acknowledge God as creator, we will never be humbled enough to know Him as Lord and Savior.

The fear of the Lord is a precious gift.  The overwhelming awareness that we are in the presence of the magnificent God of the universe should humble us.

The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.  (Numbers 14:18)

The doorway to true worship is knowledge of who we are worshiping.  That doorway is latched with the fear of the Lord.  It will do us well to periodically come back to the beginning of faith, to be humble by the healthy fear of our Creator.

lrargerich / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

We are blessed to be diminished by the Creator of the night sky.

We need not fear to fear our Lord.  It is not a fear that causes us to flee.  It is a fear that beckons us to draw near.  Honest fear of the incomprehensible Father of heaven and earth ushers us into deep and meaningful worship of the Creator who saves and the incomprehensible extent of his mercy, grace, and love.

PRAYER: O Lord, you are great and greatly to be praised.  I stand before You humbled by the reality of your magnificence.  You are God, the One and only.  I will trust in You and not be shaken for You hold all the world in your hand.  I can rest in You alone because you are the creator.  Nothing is impossible for the One who has the power to breathe the breath of life.  Thank you for teaching me to fear You.  Thank you for using that knowledge to draw me to yourself.  You truly are glorified in all of your creation.  May you be glorified in me.  I praise you, O Lord.   I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.

“The humility of wisdom is the happy consciousness that all things come from God, are sustained by God, and exist for God. This wisdom is rooted in the pride-destroying, joy-giving cross of Christ.”
~ John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God