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."