Love

By Rachel Thompson.

The church of God is to be rooted and grounded in love. Love is the root that feeds us. Love is the solid ground beneath our feet. Jesus' one commandment to His disciples was, "Love one another, as I have loved you" (John 15:12). As we obey, we will be overwhelmed by the love of God for us.

To the Philippians, Paul wrote, "And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment" (Phil. 1:9).

This love isn't idealistic or sappy. It is full of knowledge and discernment. Such love runs counter to our modern ideas, even to much of our experience. Knowledge and judgment tend to diminish our feelings of ardor, not cause them to abound! When I know someone well, I can see all his faults. When my judgment — call it "discernment" — is sharp, I'll recognize my brother's immaturities and even perhaps his sins.

But that's how it should be! Paul prayed that our love might be based on truth. We're not to love illusions of each other, but realities. Love based on falsehood is stunted and weak. We are to love one another in truth, to embrace one another's weaknesses and warts, because our true and holy God has loved us. Knowledge will cause infatuation to die and illusion to fade. But where there is true love, knowledge will cause it to abound.

Paul's words send me to my knees with an awareness of how poor my love has been. I'm willing to love the church until it hurts, offends, or annoys me. I'm willing to love it until I decide it's gone too far. But Paul's words send me back to the cross. They remind me that Jesus loves me despite my weaknesses, my failures, and my most disgusting sins. My entire life should be rooted and grounded in that love. Love makes us holy. God wants to see it in us, and so I will ask God for it — not for myself only, but for all the church.

Sin and Temptation

Hebrews 4:15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

This verse reveals a very important fact about Jesus and ourselves. The fact that Jesus was tempted in every way we were reveals that temptation is itself not sin because Jesus was without sin. The fact that Jesus was without sin also reveals that he has been tempted more than anyone else due to the fact that he did not give into temptation. As John Piper writes "If a person gives in to temptation, it never reaches its fullest and longest assault." Jesus never cracked under temptation so he knew temptation's fullest force.

So in our temptation we must turn to the next verse in Hebrews.
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

When we are tempted we must draw near to Jesus who sympathizes with our struggles which should make us eager to come into his presence.

The Heroes of the Bible?

I read an interesting article this week by Glenn Packiam in which he points out an interesting perspective on every traditional Bible "hero": they're human. While the God-inspired Bible could have been lacking in mention of your typical Sunday School story hero's sins, it isn't. Every one has a flaw.

David is not a ruddy kid with a fuzzy Jewish afro who killed the giant and ruled the nation with wisdom and strength. He is a man wrestling between a desire for vindication against King Saul and a conviction that God's authority must be respected. He is a man who lies to a priest and feigns allegiance to a wicked king. Both actions cost hundreds of innocent lives. And who can forget his scandalous affair and botched cover-up that led to murder?

The more you turn the pages of Scripture, the faster the flannel board heroes tumble. Moses, in his passion for God's people kills a man. That same impatience later leads to a disastrous disobedience that prevents him for entering the Promise Land. Noah, after saving his family from the destruction of the world, got so drunk his sons had to walk in backward to avoid seeing his naked, shameful condition. Rahab, the woman who saved Joshua and Caleb's life, allowing them to enter and eventually possess the Promise Land, was a prostitute. Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant—which in today's world, might be like shooting Billy Graham's assistant in the leg! And let's not even get into his wholesale denial of the Messiah. Paul, the great apostle, had a temper that led to a few severed partnerships.

While we shouldn't be complacent or accepting of our sin, it is a real encourager to know that even those Bible greats, through whom God accomplished great things, were just like everyone else and had their own sins. But God's aim is not just to encourage us in our failures, instead the utter humanity of our heroes leads to something else.

Due to the humbling of our heroes we need a new hero; someone who we can relate to, a human like ourselves. We need someone who faced all the temptations, trials and heartaches that we faced only did it perfectly. We need someone who not only took on our humanity and temptations but also became our savior; dying for the sins of the world. We need Jesus.

"In some sense, all the other Bible stories go out of their way to detail the flaws of their main character so as to anticipate the flawlessness of Christ...Humans, not heroes, are the stuff of earth. The humanity of all other Biblical characters is intentional. In them, we see ourselves, and an example of how to surrender our brokenness to Christ; in Christ, we see our hope. In the end, this business of looking for a hero must only lead to Christ, the Savior of the world."

My Religious Affiliation

So the other night a girl asked me what religion I was. I thought for a few moments and couldn't rightly respond. The only church I've ever been to with a denominational title was the Mennonite church that I attended as a child. The next church was essentially non-denominational and for a while was pretty much without members as well. My current church, while still non-denominational, is nothing like the previous one. So naturally, I had a hard time explaining to the girl, a Catholic, what "religion" I was.
I'm a self-proclaimed Christian but that word seems too ambiguous. Dictionary.com defines it as "of, pertaining to, believing in, or belonging to the religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ: Spain is a Christian country." That covers what I believe but is still very general. A Roman Catholic is considered a Christian by that definition and I definitely do not believe what Roman Catholics do. So what do I believe?
I Believe:

• in a triune God with three persons, distinct in their function but equal in essence and nature.
  
• that God is righteous and just.
  
• that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God"
• that therefore I am a sinner and a righteous and just God would not accept a sinner into heaven.
• that Jesus became man, lived a perfect life, died as the sacrificial lamb for my sins and rose again to show not even death can stop God.
  
• that accepting Jesus Christ as your savior is the only way to the Father and Heaven.
• that nothing I can ever do, except accepting Jesus as savior, can ever contribute to my salvation because Jesus paid it all on the cross. In other words, I am never anymore justified to be in Heaven then when I first accept Christ as my savior.
  
• in unconditional election, or that God chooses to save only by His grace and mercy, and not because of merit or worth.
• in limited atonement, or that Jesus' substitutionary death was enough for everyone's salvation but was not meant for everyone but rather only for God's "elect"
  
• that God does everything in a manner that give God the most glory.
• that when God purposes to save someone, his Holy Spirit will not be defeated so God can save anyone but chooses to endure "vessels of wrath" because it gives Himself the most glory.
• that He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it so if you have accepted Jesus into your heart you have, a sort of, "eternal security"
  
• that the gifts of the Holy Spirit (speaking in tongues, prophecy etc.) are present in the church today.
• that the Bible is the breathed out word of God and is completely infallible and completely true.
  

So what does that make me? It makes me a man desperately in need of a savior who God has chosen to save out of his love, and who is called to live a life as a suitable representation of the God he serves but fails. Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

So why Blog?

If anyone is wondering why I am now blogging, I take a page from C.J. Maheney's playbook and point to what other people have said on the subject. Bob Kauflin in an article on Boundless writes,

"blogs have enabled us to communicate what's in our hearts and minds to anyone in the world who wants to listen. And you can do all of this sitting at home in front of your computer.

If you're reading this, there's a good possibility that you read blogs, comment on blogs, or write one of your own. If you never go near blogs, I wouldn't be too concerned. But for the rest of us, here are some things to keep in mind as we inhabit the blogosphere.

Christians might blog on a variety of topics and for a number of reasons, but they share one common goal:
"So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. 10:31)"

That being said, this is for God's glory. It is not for my fame or a chance to show off how wise I am, but rather to bring a not-so-new perspective on the issues of our world and especially our faith.

Tim Challies also has some thoughts on blogging which I happen to share:

If you write frequently, you’ll soon exhaust all that you know. After all, you have a limited number of stories to tell, a limited store of knowledge to share. So if you want to blog, make sure you are continually challenging yourself in the area you write about. As a Christian, this means that I dedicate myself to the Christian disciplines to ensure that I am continually growing in my knowledge of God as revealed in His Word. It also means that I constantly read good books (and some not-so-good books). These two disciplines provide me with the food for thought that keeps me writing and, most of the time, provides me with topics to write about. I’ve said it often, but I’ll say it again: if I stopped reading the Bible and stopped reading good books, I’d have nothing to say. I’d have to pack it up and move on.

Also:

First, there is good reason that writing and journaling have long been considered important spiritual disciplines. I have found often that I do not really know what I believe about something until I have written about it. Only in writing down my thoughts am I able to press to the furthest extent to learn what I really believe. Writing has become a critical discipline for me and one that tells me much about myself and the state of my heart (Emphasis mine).

Lastly, this blog will be characterized by a love for the lost but not for the world they live in. To quote Justin Taylor, "Jesus said they will know us by our fruit and by our love, and a lot of blogs are failing in that."