Tag Archives: Loving Like Jesus

Maturing in Love

Living in the Spirit

November 11, 2021

Scripture Reading:
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25

And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’, and since then has been waiting ‘until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.’ For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy
Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
   after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
   and I will write them on their minds’,
he also adds,
‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.—Hebrews 10:11-14

Love is not something anyone can command. Love of self, love of family, love of God must be a choice. The words “free will” are not included in the above scripture, but they are present between the lines. The greatest gift God gave us in creating us was the right to choose who and how we love. That gift was given from the One who is love and, in creating humans in that One’s image, freely chose to love each of us no matter what. God’s love and Christ were present at the creation and continued through the many acts of rescuing and reframing of God’s people described in the Hebrew Bible. God enabled those who chose to love him, Abraham, Moses, Ruth, Esther, and many prophets, to provide guidance and opportunities to live the better way of life ruled by love. God even wrote those laws on human hearts, making them readily accessible. Humans, however, proved to be malleable to the temptations of other gods, drawing away from the One who created them. God never gives up. God came to dwell among us in the person of Jesus, who taught us by his life and his words and ultimately gave his life for our salvation. However, God is God, and crucifixion was not the last word. Jesus, the Christ, arose and dwells with us still in the Holy Spirit. His act of love granted us the grace we needed to live in God’s house forever as we strive toward perfecting our ability to love.

At times our growing pains are palpable. We now, unfortunately, live in such a time as this. In many ways, we are acting like a two-year-old transitioning from infancy to childhood. Greed, lust for power, and self-righteousness have replaced justice and God’s righteousness, as we worship gods of our design. Continuing down this path has never worked before and will not work this time. Our world was created to function at its best when it is ruled by love, and we are suffering from not accepting that reality. The time is now to turn around and refocus our lives on God’s way of being, individually and collectively, until we are all one in God.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us for our foolish ways. We invite your Spirit into our lives to restore our souls individually and collectively as we strive to become one 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.

A Just Nation

Living in the Spirit

November 7, 2021

Scripture Reading: John 11:32-44

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ John 11:38-42

Soon after I graduated from college and started my first job as a social worker, I participated in a Bible study based on the story of the raising of Lazarus. We explored the question was our faith dead or alive? Did our faith need to be unbound and let go? If so, where was it leading us? This was a good time in my life to consider, as a young adult, how I would live my faith. I am a cradle Christian who never experienced life without being a part of a Christian community of faith.  I attended a Christian College. I accepted Jesus as my Savior as a youth.  But the time had come for me to choose how to live my faith beyond the influence of family and the church’s culture. My life experiences discerning how my faith defined me coincided with my first experiences as a social worker providing direct services. I only spent two years working directly with the poor and families caught in the child welfare system. While I spent 33 years more working in social work administration, those prior two years provided me with a lifetime of lessons in the need to do justice and see that the world’s systemic ways must be addressed for justice to be realized.  Jesus was very clear about our need to address such issues.

While we readily think that we are the most powerful nation globally, we fail to see if that were true that could classify us as what the Bible calls an empire. The question with which we must struggle is whether there can be justice within an empire. Unfortunately, history does not give us much hope for that. Greed and lust for power have overtaken most empires. Can our faith in God unbind us from these snares of empire?

Prayer: Lord, Paul tells us that faith, hope, and love abides and the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13). Fill us with your love, renew our hope, strengthen our faith toward building a world ruled by 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.

Changing for the Better

Living in the Spirit

November 3, 2021

Scripture Reading:
Psalm 24

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
   the world, and those who live in it;
for he has founded it on the seas,
   and established it on the rivers.

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
   And who shall stand in his holy place?
Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
   who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
   and do not swear deceitfully.
They will receive blessing from the Lord,
   and vindication from the God of their salvation.
Such is the company of those who seek him,
   who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Psalm 24:1-6

The indigenous peoples of the Americas did not recognize individual land ownership. They believed that the earth was created for and shared by all peoples, much as the above scripture describes. This idea differed markedly from the European culture when they came to occupy the Americas. The Europeans not only practiced land ownership but used it as a definer of ones worth. This collision of culture laid the groundwork for much misunderstanding and wars. I am not acquainted enough with world history to know where the Europeans developed their land ownership philosophy. Basic laws regarding land were laid out following the Norman invasion of 1066.

As the world progresses, people make changes to accommodate new ways of living. Horse and buggies changed to cars. I read an interesting discussion about the observance of not working on the Sabbath regarding electric lights. Did flipping a switch constitute work? That was the question that arose with the introduction of electric lights. Our culture deals daily with new ways of living as we communion with many diverse cultures. Our challenge is determining how we insert these changes into our lives while discerning how they mesh with our faith. The Psalm above handles that self-examination by asking Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?  And who shall stand in his holy place? The Psalmist is challenging us to act with intentionality in all we do to assure that we are in sync with the Lord we serve. We should never assume that our way is always the better way. And better ways should not be the source of greed and discrimination which are never in sync with God’s plan.

Prayer: Open our hearts to grow from the diversity of the world you created for all. 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.

Faith and Hope

Living in the Spirit

November 2, 2021

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 25:6-9

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
   a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines,
   of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear.
And he will destroy on this mountain
   the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
   the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death for ever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
   and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
   for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
   Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
   This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
   let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

There is a feeling now in our world that a shroud is cast over all peoples. The COVID virus is undoubtedly taking its toll. About the time we seem to get it under control, it rears its ugly head again. Scriptures like the one above were, most likely, written to give people hope in what seemed like a hopeless situation. God knows we need hope now. Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. A lesson I have learned from studying the history of God is that God is rarely if ever, magic wane waver. Jesus, on occasion, healed by touch and forgave immediately, but he added things like pick up your bed and walk (John 5:8-16) or go and sin no more (John 8:7).

We most often think of Jesus’s primary task being our salvation, but he spent most of his time while on earth training disciples to carry on his work when he was gone. Once I read the first chapter of Acts, which is essentially a board meeting making plans to further Jesus’s work, I followed immediately by reading the second chapter, which describes the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Faith is the knowledge that God is with us in all we do, especially in bringing forth God’s Kingdom on earth, but God always expects us to do our part.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for your abiding presence. Help me clearly see the task you set before me and complete 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.

Death Penalty

Living in the Spirit

November 1, 2021

Scripture Reading:

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt-offering he accepted them.
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his elect.

Oklahoma has jumped back into the desire to execute prisons with great enthusiasm. A new governor and his newly appointed Attorney General are anxious to correct the state’s requirement to do this job. I wish they had the same enthusiasm for solving our homeless problem or that we are in the top ten worst states in the nation for public education and health care. Oklahoma placed a moratorium on execution in 2015 after a second botched attempt at executing persons sentenced to the death penalty. Last week we used the same protocols to execute a man and got the same results. Witnesses reported that while he was strapped on a gurney like Jesus on the cross, he vomited all over himself twice and convulsed two dozen times immediately after being given the sedative that was the first step in the process. The second shot paralysis him. And finally, they administered the lethal drug that killed him.  

Prayer: May John Marion Grant rest in peace, and may God have mercy on all responsible for his execution, including me whose taxes helped pay for it.  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.

Loving God

Living in the Spirit

Scripture Reading:
Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbor as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.

We probably have a good idea of what it means to love with all our hearts. My spiritual director trainer shared with our class that he had not understood unconditional love until he switched roles and became his mother’s caretaker when she was helpless without voice near the end of her life. I took a test recently to determine how I communed with God and scored highest on being an intellectual, meaning I have to test everything in my mind before I can be comfortable with it. Loving God with all our minds means we can logically accept this mysterious holy one. Loving one with all my strength reminds me of the day I was working through college as a nurse’s aide. One of our patients was fully paralyzed and weighed over 300 pounds. We used a hydraulic lift to remove her from her bed and to lower her into a bathtub.  I was on one end of the lift with another aide on the other end when one of the wheels closest to me fell off. I was left balancing the lift with the patient until several people raised it enough to get the wheel back in place. God gave us adrenaline for such a time as that. I see loving God with all our strength as serving God in whatever way God calls us to act.

I saved loving God with all our souls for last; it puzzled me. The soul is who we are for eternity, but I think Jesus meant more than that. Then I thought loving one’s soul might tie into that second most important commandment of loving oneself. God created us, loves us just as we are and as we are becoming, and wants us to love ourselves as we grow and develop in relationship to God. Loving with our heart is parent love; loving with our soul is a child’s love under the protective wings of a loving parent.

Prayer: Dear Lord, in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy*. Amen.

*See Psalm 63

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.

Works as Worship

Living in the Spirit

October 29, 2021

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 9:11-14

But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

The works we do are worship of the living God. God indeed loves our communing through prayer and meditation, praising with music, reading scriptures that remind us of the history of God from creation to eternity. However, God’s greatest joy may be witnessing our loving one another and all others.

What are those dead works that we need to cleanse from our conscience? What is sapping our energy away from the works that are worship? When and how are we guilty of directing our time, energy, and resources toward dead outcomes? Our lists will all differ, but I think it is essential that we examine our actions periodically to identify misplaced efforts and redirect our work from them. Jesus instructed the disciples when he sent them out into the world to spread the good news according to Matthew 10:14 saying: If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Discerning when the time has come to walk away is hard but perhaps not permanent. Martin Luther King Jr. instigated the Poor People’s Campaign shortly before he was assassinated in 1968. The idea went dormant for years but had a rebirth in 2017 and is active today.

Our worship works may take much longer than we would hope, but perseverance is another way to worship God. For example, advocates for health care in Oklahoma had to work for more than ten years to get Medicaid expansion approved, and it took a vote of the people to make it happen.

How much time do we spend in meetings that go nowhere and accomplish nothing? How many hours do we invest in doing things just because we have always done them? When I first joined my church, it had a robust Wednesday night dinner followed by great classes. Thirty years later, it no longer met the needs of families where both parents worked outside the home and valued their evening with their children. We eventually disbanded it.

Finally, in our fragmented world, how often do we want just to give up? We see hate and anger being encouraged in our land, divide and conquer tactics trying to separate us as a means of others obtaining power. Dead works can also describe giving up on God’s way of loving being the best way of living. We are all called to never give up on God’s love.

Prayer: Lord, guide us in examining our lives to clear out the dead works that are getting in the way of works that are worship. 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.

Serving God

Living in the Spirit

October 28, 2021

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 9:11-14

But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation), he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

Once for all. . . obtaining eternal redemption, Jesus’s death on the cross freed us from repetitious penitence, allowing us to devote our time and talent to loving God and loving one another.  I grew up on a farm and knew the labor necessary just to head a heifer to the desired location. I remember Dad bringing home a cow that turned out to be headstrong and wild. The whole family got involved in trying to get her in the milking barn. She even swam the pond to escape the barrier we had created to capture her. Consequently, she was returned to the sale barn the following week.

The above scripture could be a good metaphor for getting distracted by the dead works that entangle us from following the plan that Jesus set forth for us. I see that plan summarized in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and Jesus telling us we will be judged on how well we care for others described in Matthew 25:31-46. I am not critical of our faith ancestors who were offering items of worth in homage to God. However, Jesus’s death and resurrection tell us that the thing most valuable to God is our giving back, by choice, the life God gave us in service and in love to actualizing God’s original vision of our world.

Prayer: God of Grace, thank you for the teachings of Jesus showing us how to serve you and for Christ’s continuing support and love as we choose to love you more dearly and serve you more nearly. 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.

Happy or Blessed

Living in the Spirit

October 27, 2021

Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:1-8

Happy are those whose way is blameless,
   who walk in the law of the Lord.
Happy are those who keep his decrees,
   who seek him with their whole heart,
who also do no wrong,
   but walk in his ways.
You have commanded your precepts
   to be kept diligently.
O that my ways may be steadfast
   in keeping your statutes!
Then I shall not be put to shame,
   having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.
I will praise you with an upright heart,
   when I learn your righteous ordinances.
I will observe your statutes;
   do not utterly forsake me.

I just discovered that I did not know what the word “happy” means. When I read the first line of the above scripture, Happy are those whose way is blameless, my mind immediately flashed to the plight of Julius Jones, a prisoner on death row awaiting execution. There are many questions about his guilt in the murder of a man. In my opinion, there exist too many unanswered issues to execute him, but a jury disagreed, as have the appeals courts. Much information has evolved since the trial that was not available for the jury to consider. A very compelling case could be made that he was innocent. However, if he is blameless, I doubt that he would use my definition of the word “happy” to describe his state of being.

Merriam-Webster defines happy as:

  1. favored by luck or fortune
  2. notably well adapted or fitting, markedly effective
  3. having the feeling arising from the consciousness of well-being*

Strong’s Concordance uses blessed as a near-synonym**. Other Biblical translations use blessed instead of happy, which perhaps suggests a relationship with God. He was 19 years old when the crime was committed and was sentenced to death in 2002. He could have quit feeling a long time ago.

I think definition number three fits Julius Jones’s situation. One attains a sense of well-being when one is right with God, no matter what others think. I know nothing about his faith, but I pray he has found that sense of well-being that comes from a relationship with God. I also pray that, as a government, we seek restorative justice for all in all situations.

Prayer: God, forgive us when we fail to do justice and practice mercy. Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/happy

**https://biblehub.com/hebrew/835.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.

Fragile Destiny

Living in the Spirit

October 26, 2021

Scripture Reading:

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy, so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you, so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

I have a deep sense that our world is on the cusp of imploding, collapsing inward from the external pressure of greed. We seem willing to die or kill our future and the future of our descendants in exchange for amassing wealth. We use our talents and skills clinging to fossil fuels rather than seeking ways to replace them while retaining the economic impact they create. Jobs are crucial amassing wealth is not.  I am reminded of these words from the song, Circle, on Barbra Streisand’s CD Higher Ground:

When it comes to thinking of tomorrow
We must protect our fragile destiny
In this precious life there is no time to borrow
The time has come to be a family

Of course, we may not need to save the earth if we kill off all its inhabitants via starvation, pandemics, and terrorism. Are we climbing the Tower of Babel or perhaps swimming to grab the last seat on Noah’s Ark? Are we really willing to fall as Israel and Judah did, followed by their captors Assyria and Babylon? Can we not see ourselves in our history? Oh, but I forget we are now outlawing the teaching of history—finding ways to learn from our mistakes.

The good thing about a cusp is it marks a point of transition. We do hold our fragile destiny in our hands. Do we follow the ways of greed and lust for power, or do we listen to the path set forth by Micah 6:8?

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?

Prayer: Lord, save us from self-destruction. Turn us around and help us learn the wonder of living a life of 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.