Tag Archives: God’s Love

God’s Children

Eastertide

June 6, 2019

Scripture Reading: Romans 8:14-17

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

I was stunned when I read one of my great, great grandfather’s will where it said my great grandfather, his son Daniel, was to get nothing. The small town they lived in created a history of most of its early citizens. My great, great grandfather and grandmother are named along with eleven of their twelve children. You can guess who was left out. Family lore has it that Daniel was a horse thief and was found dead facedown in a creek having been shot several times. I have not verified that, nor do I know where he is buried. I do not think most of us spend much time thinking about being heirs, and I cannot imagine how one would feel if he or she were disinherited. I did see the records of the sale where my great, great grandfather’s property was sold at auction after his death.  Daniel bought his dad’s saddle.

And so, it is that God in God’s great mercy and love sends the Spirit to bear witness to our spirit that we are children of God. I think all humans are children of God. Some may not be aware of that and that perhaps in on us for not having taken God’s love to the ends of the earth. Others may defy God’s attempts to love them. I do not think that God ever disinherits any of God’s children, but some may remove themselves from the shelter of God’s love. Perhaps that is what is described as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit*.

I wish I could find a prodigal son story about my Great Grandfather Daniel, but I have not yet. The prodigal son in the Bible had already lost his property inheritance, but he could never lose his Father’s love. That is true for all God’s children.

Prayer: Thank you, God, for the gift of the Holy Spirit to give us the assurance of your love for each of us, your children. Amen.

*See Mark 3:28–29, Matthew 12:31–32, and Luke 12:10
**See Luke 15:11-32

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Choosing to Love

Eastertide

May 18, 2019

Scripture Reading: John 13:31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

The Unabridged Merriam-Webster Dictionary* defines the English use of the word love using three and a half pages where it identifies eleven different definitions most of which are further divided into two or more iterations. And additional three pages deals with variations of love. I realize I write a lot about love and further understand that some of my readers do not get what I am trying to say because the definition of love they primarily use does not match the one I am thinking as I write.

The Greek from which the above scripture was translated has at least three definitions of love and the one used throughout our reading today is based on agape or what English speakers often refer to as God’s love. Here are explanations of that word:

agapáō – properly, to prefer, to love; for the believer, preferring to “live through Christ” (1 Jn 4:9,10), i.e. embracing God’s will (choosing His choices) and obeying them through His power. 25 (agapáō) preeminently refers to what God prefers as He “is love” (1 Jn 4:8,16). See 26 (agapē).

ith the believer, 25 /agapáō (“to love”) means actively doing what the Lord prefers, with Him (by His power and direction). True 25 /agapáō (“loving”) is always defined by God – a “discriminating affection which involves choice and selection” (WS, 477). 1 Jn 4:8,16,17 for example convey how loving (“preferring,” 25 /agapáō) is Christ living His life through the believer**.

The primary emphasis in the Greek word translated love in the above scripture is that it related to goodwill and it is a chosen preference of the way we live as God chooses to love us. Our culture seems to see love as an enticement over which we have no control. Jesus chose to love the wild man of Gennesaret (Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20) when no one else wanted to be near. He chose to love the son of the Syrian Phoenician woman (Mark 7:26) though in his religion/culture both she and the boy were unclean.  Jesus even loved James and John when they felt privileged and deserved more status than others (Mark 10:35-45) not understanding that following Jesus most likely meant great sacrifice. Who do we choose to love simply because they are another child of God deserving of our goodwill?

Prayer: Grant us the courage to choose to love others as you love us. Amen.

*http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/love

**https://biblehub.com/greek/25.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

God’s Love Our Hope

Eastertide

May 11, 2019

Scripture Reading: John 10:22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.’

Religion is defined as the service and worship of a god, of multiple gods, or of the supernatural :  commitment or devotion to a god or gods, a system of beliefs, or religious observance*.

When does religion become an entity unto itself unrelated to its object of worship? When do followers of a religion become so steeped in its traditions and practices it loses sight of the god to whom it pledges allegiance? These seem to be the problems Jesus dealt with as he attempted to re-introduce the ways of God to his own people in Israel shaking the very core of what systems theory calls their homeostasis:

  1. a tendency toward maintenance of a relatively stable internal environment in the bodies of higher animals through a series of interacting physiological processes (as the maintenance of a fairly constant degree of body heat in the face of widely varying external temperatures)
  2. a tendency toward maintenance of a relatively stable psychological condition of the individual with respect to contending drives, motivations, and other psychodynamic forces
  3. a tendency toward maintenance of relatively stable social conditions among groups with respect to various factors (as food supply and population among animals) and to competing tendencies and powers within the body politic, to society, or to culture among men[people]**

This reality in our culture is probably best exemplified in our unwillingness to recognize and address climate change even as we wade through its devastating floods. Regarding religion, first century Jewish leaders clung to enforcing ritual and rules rather than practicing the love and justice foundation laid forth for them by God in God’s earliest encounters with God’s children. While our ritual and rules may differ as we hand pick and reshape the rituals and rules of our ancestors in faith, we display the same symptoms today.

Jesus called us not only to make love and justice our homeostasis but to spread its value to all people throughout the world. For humans, it is very hard to give us something we have grown to cherished even if it is harmful to us and to all about us. To be honest, I doubt if any of us can love and do justice like Jesus unless we lean heavily on God’s love as we transition into God’s ways.

Prayer: Lord, grant us the courage to face life changes required to love like you. Amen.

*http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/Religion
**http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/homeostasis

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Working within Our Strengths

Eastertide

May 4, 2019

Scripture Reading: John 21:1-19

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’ They answered him, ‘No.’ He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.’ So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the lake. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off. –John 21:4-8

I am left handed and have had to adapt since birth to a right handed world. I am glad my parents chose to let me be the way God created me unlike many of their peers and ancestors who were required to make their right hand their dominant hand. One of my older aunts told me that two of my great aunts were born left handed and when that was discovered their mother tied the toddlers’ arms to their side until they made the transition to being right handed. The connotation of the word “right” is “better” not just more common.

The reason Jesus told them to throw the net on the right side of the boat may well have been an instruction to work within their strengths because 90% of them were most likely right handed and he knew that there were a lot of fish to haul in. In our creation God gifted all God’s children differently for the purposes of building a strong society ruled by love. Apparently, God did not need as many left handed people but apparently God needed some. Science now tells us that we humans are a whole lot more alike than different. Our cultures, past and present, have seen a need to differentiate humans by skin color, gender, etc. to serve sometimes self-serving ends like slavery and right to land and decision making. Most of those ends relate to greed and lust for power, the idols of our world today, not the rule of love in God’s vision for our future.

Prayer: Lord, help us discover our strengths and work within them to your glory. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Anchored to God

Eastertide

May 3, 2019

Scripture Reading: Revelation 5:11-14

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice,
‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!’
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,
‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might
for ever and ever!’
And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ And the elders fell down and worshiped.

So, how do we see through the darkness that clouds our view and identify that which is of God and that which is not? Perhaps we all should memorize 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, where Paul spells out measures of love:

 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

I like the definition of love as wanting God’s best for myself and all others. I think that is what is meant by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. We do not define the plumb line that measures what that best is; God does, which means to love like God we must commit to a lifetime of knowing God more fully.

Jesus is not a political button or T-shirt slogan to further human causes. Jesus Christ is the plumb line for measuring God’s love and furthering the development of the Kingdom of God on earth. Revelation tells us that we need to recognize and follow the power leading that revolution.

In times like these you need a Savior,
In times like these you need an anchor;
Be very sure, be very sure,
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

This Rock is Jesus, Yes He’s the One,
This Rock is Jesus, the only One;
Be very sure, be very sure,
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!*

Prayer: Lord, forgive me when my love is tainted by the ways of lesser gods. Help my anchor to hold tightly to you. Amen.

*First verse and chorus of In Times Like These lyrics and music by Ruth Caye Jones see at https://namethathymn.com/christian-hymns/in-times-like-these-lyrics.html

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Love Unswerving

Good Friday

April 19, 2019

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26

for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
–1 Corinthians 15:22-26

I am a strong believer in the separation of church and state. I am a stronger believer in the day that is coming when our faith fully aliened with God’s love is reflected in all governments. I think that is what Paul is trying to say in the above scripture, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. We humans are the ones desirous of controlling or overthrowing governments by the force of our personal and national powers. We lean on bigger armies, more cunning political skills, and money lots and lots of money. What we fail to comprehend is that there is no power greater than God’s abiding love. As we are made in God’s image, fully capable of loving like God, and as we diligently strive to love like God that image will pass through us to are governance.

This is the day set aside to remember the greatest illustration of God’s love, the day Jesus was crucified. It is a good day for self-examination regarding our loving like God. It is a good day for us to renew our commitment to take on the very fiber of God’s love in our being and to live it in all aspects of our lives as individuals and as members of the Body of Christ charged with carrying forward the work of Jesus.

For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life’s oblation;
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
for my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,
I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,
think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,
not my deserving.*

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for the gift of you love, empower us to grow into loving like you. Amen.

*Verses 4 and 5 of Ah, Holy Jesus by Johann Heermann see at https://hymnary.org/text/ah_holy_jesus_how_hast_thou_offended All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Created to Love

Lent
April 12, 2019

Scripture Reading: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
   you are my God, I will extol you.
O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
   for his steadfast love endures forever. Psalm 118:28-29

Why is it so hard for humans to put love first in our lives? If we accept the premise that God is love, why do we invest so much of ourselves being enticed by lesser gods? Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes it as cheap grace:

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

 Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

We construct gods of our own making that do not require us to see ourselves for who we are in the wholeness of our potential. The richer life, fuller life is born of seeing ourselves through the eyes of our Creator and understanding who we are and whose we are in the light of God’s love.

Prayer: Creator God, as you continue to mold and make us in your image, give us the courage to live fully in your love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

God’s Love

Lent
April 8, 2019

Scripture Reading: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-28-40

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
   his steadfast love endures forever!

 Let Israel say,
   ‘His steadfast love endures forever.’ –Psalm 118:1-2

We can take God’s word for granted that God’s steadfast love endures forever, and we never should take these words of God for granted. The amazing gift of God’s grace and love is the foundation of our wholeness. It allows us to be our best selves, enabling us to live into the full covenant of God’s desire for all God’s creation to be one.

We are one in the bond of love
We are one in the bond of love
We have joined our spirit with the Spirit of God
We are one in the bond of love

 Let us sing now, ev’ry one,
Let us feel His love begun;
Let us join our hand that the world will know
We are one in the bond of love*

Prayer: Father God, I come into your presence so aware of my human frailty and yet overwhelmed by your love for me. I thank you that there is no human experience that I might walk through where your love cannot reach me. If I climb the highest mountain you are there and yet if I find myself in the darkest valley of my life, you are there. Teach me today to love you more. Help me to rest in that love that asks nothing more than the simple trusting heart of a child. In Jesus name, Amen**

*Chorus We Are One in the Bond of Love by Otis Skillings see at https://www.hymnlyrics.org/newlyrics_t/the_bond_of_love.php** Author Unknown

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Living God’s Love

Lent
April 3, 2019

Scripture Reading: Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
   we were like those who dream.
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
   and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
   ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’
The Lord has done great things for us,
   and we rejoiced.

 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
   like the watercourses in the Negeb.
May those who sow in tears
   reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
   bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
   carrying their sheaves.

I am in the process of finishing the book We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter. It is a novel describing the real story of a Jewish family living in Poland at the outbreak of World War II. It traces the lives of the family members, parents and young adults, as they were scattered from Poland to Brazil, Siberia, Tahran, and Italy. The story provides new insights on what it truly must feel like to worship God after the horrors of being condemned refugees. They were the lucky ones. Around 6 million European Jews were killed*. I could not help imagining that family’s emotional response to reuniting as I read the above scripture.

One of my uncles served in Germany during that war. He and a few other soldiers had just crossed a bridge in Germany when it was blown up with the rest of his platoon on it. German soldiers came along shortly and shot all but my uncle and one other man all were defenseless and severely injured some already dead. When my uncle was flipped over by the butt of a rifle to see if he was alive, he said he played possum. I guess all those hours of hunting and observing wildlife had paid a dividend. He and his buddy were two of the lucky ones also. He lived the rest of his life with a metal plate replacing a bone in his head and another metal bar holding a shattered leg bone together. He did not tell me this. He did not talk about the war. My dad got the story probably from someone else when he visited him while he was in the hospital. After reading the book I wondered what other horrors my uncle had seen.

The Psalm above is a song of ascent sang by worshipers as they walked up the hill to the temple. It relates the story of celebration when Israel was freed from bondage. There were an estimated 68.5 million* refugees in our world in 2018 and the number is growing. These people were driven from their homelands to save themselves from certain death from violence, starvation, lack of drinkable water, and oppression. How is that possible in a world where many claim allegiances to the God of love who calls followers to love our neighbor as we love ourselves? God created a bountiful world with enough resources for all to live in their homelands and have adequate resources to not just survive but thrive. Too many people, some claiming to be God’s people worship at the feet of greed and lust after power resulting in even more mistreatment of those escaping violence. God’s call still echoes through this world, we need to listen for that still small voice and live God’s love.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for turning blind eyes to the needs of refugees. Show us avenues of service where we can help meet their immediate needs and paths to justice to create a world ruled by love. Amen.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Learning Love

Lent
March 21, 2019

Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.

 Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. –1 Corinthians 10:1-8

Would that the cause and effects of our lives were as black and white as Paul suggests. They are not. He is expressing the hindsight of a few thousand years.  We do not even learn from that history and thus history repeats itself. How do we escape the desire for evil? How do we learn from our mistakes? How do we escape the rationalization that we are the one who can dance with evil and come out unscathed? How do we pass that knowledge to others and coming generations? How do we build a kingdom ruled by love where evil’s power is no longer alluring, and its energies are refocused to good?

Perhaps we do need to become like little children* in our spiritual development. Infants learn from their mistakes rarely rapidly. They may miss their mouths many times but when they finally taste the food and find that it is good, that knowledge is recorded, and they soon no longer miss the mark. They also learn interactions with others quickly. Making it very important that parents react to them in ways that encourage independence while assuring loving support in the progress.

In like matter we learn of God’s abiding love and wisdom through a process of nurture and growth in a world full of distractions and tempting shortcuts in navigate the world about us. Our goals in life are impacted by those distractions and shortcuts. If we are hungry and have no food, we are more likely to do anything to survive. If we feel unloved like we do not belong, we are apt to search for love in all the wrong places.

As followers of Christ we are called to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. We learn to love ourselves when we accept in every fiber of our being that God loves us, created us, and that in God’s creation God identified us as good.  Such love enables us to love all of God’s children even those who do not yet understand how much God loves them. Our job is to nurture that understanding.

Prayer: Lord, free me from the distractions of evil and empower me to be a sharer of your love. Amen.

*Derived from Matthew 18:2-4

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.