Category: Love (Page 1 of 8)

Sorrow and Love

When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died;
my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God!
All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.

See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

~ Isaac Watts, 1707

The First Thing First

My two grandsons are in there! The boys!

Valerie is 22 weeks in, due in mid-July, and she looks straight-up amazing!

Let the record show that my NCAA tournament bracket is weak this year. So weak. For the first time in my life, I am going with all four number one seeds in the Final Four–Auburn, Duke, Houston, and Florida–with Cougar High beating Auburn for the championship, because I don’t know what else to do. I have no hopes of being competitive in our church bracket. I have picked Texas A&M and Texas Tech to make it to the Sweet Sixteen and I have picked Texas to lose their opener. I’m picking against the ‘Horns on principle for the integrity of a non-gimmicked 64-team bracket. And because they stink.

More importantly, we are eight days away from Opening Day.

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We Christians who talk about love all the time and claim to belong to a God of love and to follow a Messiah of love don’t always love so well. So, people have a hard time believing in our God and Messiah.

But love is the main thing. It’s the number one thing. Love is the most important thing. Our Lord Jesus tells us in unambiguous terms, over and over again, that loving others is the primary commandment. It comes first. For disciples of Christ, nothing else ever comes before love. All other Christian commands and obligations come somewhere after the first priority to love.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” ~1 John 4:7-12

Since our salvation is delivered by love, since the Church is born out of love, since we exist as a people of God only by the love of God, then our very reason for living is to embody that same love among ourselves and in God’s world.

Here’s the hard truth: If you’re not a loving person, you don’t know God. If you’re not showing love to others, you haven’t truly understood God’s love for yourself.

Nobody in the world will listen to you talk about God if they experience you as an unloving person. You’ve got no credibility. It’s obvious you don’t know who you’re talking about.

If you’re a salesperson at Rogers Ford, it’s probably best that you don’t drive a Chevy around town. They don’t get the president of PETA to run the membership drive for the NRA. And you’re never going to influence anybody for Christ if you’re not a loving person. You’ll drive people away.

The Church is fractured and our witness to the world is compromised because we keep getting this one thing out of order. Instead of loving first, we judge first. Instead of loving first, we condemn first. We yell first. We complain first. We insult first. We forward the email and repost the post first. And then love might or might not come somewhere after that. It’s out of order.

We discern socio-economic boundaries first, we put racial differences first, and then we decide when and how to show love.

We prioritize politicians and parties and partisan platforms first, and then we figure out who and how and if we’re going to love. It’s backwards!

We want to investigate someone’s criminal history first, we want to question someone’s immigration status first, or categorize someone according to their outward appearance first, and then we think about where and how and if we’ll show love. That’s the wrong order!

Yes, there are difficult passages in the Bible that have to be figured out and there are some verses that need careful discernment and there are parts of Scripture with which followers of Jesus can legitimately disagree. But the command to love as the most important command and the primary command that outweighs all other commands is not one of them!

This is a critical time in our Lord’s Church. Theologians and historians and sociologists have been telling us for more than 40 years that we are going through the greatest transition in the last 500 years of Church history. And what you do matters. It matters to you and to your family, it matters to your friends and your city and the country in which you live, and to the whole world.

Anger is acceptable in our culture, but that’s not who you are. Discord and division are society’s tools, but not yours. The culture encourages you to take care of yourself first, but that’s a non-starter for Christians. Asserting myself and my rights and my personality is not my priority as a follower of Jesus. We do not go along with the world on that. We don’t say, “Well, that’s just the way the world is” or “That’s just how things work and how things get done.” To somehow justify not loving people–no matter the reason–is to squash our creativity and insult God’s grace and ignore the command of Christ.

Our Christian faith and our Christian beliefs and our Christian experience with the love of God compels us to move toward all people and embrace all people, whether they step toward you or not. That’s not the point. The point is moving toward people in love the way God in Christ moved toward you. In love.

Peace,

Allan

An Unending Love

I came across this poem about three weeks ago and have read it out loud and talked to the Lord about it several times since then. It’s written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro and has been a source of deep blessing for me lately. I hope it will be for you, too.

We are loved by an unending love.

We are embraced by arms that find us even when we are hidden from ourselves.
We are touched by fingers that soothe us even when we are too proud for soothing.
We are counseled by voices that guide us even when we are too embittered to hear.

We are loved by an unending love.

We are supported by hands that uplift us even in the midst of a fall.
We are urged on by eyes that meet us even when we are too weak for meeting.

We are loved by an unending love.

Embraced, touched, soothed, and counseled,
ours are the arms, the fingers, the voices;
ours are the hands, the eyes, the smiles.

We are loved by an unending love.

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March Madness begins today and that means keeping up with the seven brackets in our annual family contest. Seven. Not eight. Carley entered a bracket for their dog that selected every school with a canine/wolf mascot, but I’m not keeping up with it. I’ve got Houston, Baylor, Creighton, and UConn in the Final Four with Cougar High beating the Huskies for the national title. I’m fine with losing to Collin or David. I could even get over it if Whitney scores better than me. But if I lose to the dog, I’ll never fill out another bracket again.

Peace,

Allan

Authentic Christian Experience

“When we learn to read the Story of Jesus and see it as the Story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves – that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is the heart of authentic Christian experience.”

~ N. T. Wright

God’s Love Revealed

“Loving thoughts never revealed are not loving thoughts at all. It is essential to the being of love that it manifests itself. Love unrevealed is love unreal.”  ~ Dr. A. B. Bruce.

When we look at this broken world with all its pain and suffering, when we are experiencing that pain and suffering ourselves, it’s tempting to sometimes doubt the love of God. Where is God when I lose my job? Where is the love of God when my child dies? How can God love me when my parents abuse me? It doesn’t feel like God loves me when my own husband is divorcing me. How can God love me when I am so full of sin? I’m dying of cancer and sometimes the love of God just feels like a meaningless song or an empty Bible verse.

That’s why God gave us his Son. Jesus came to this earth and, in essence, said, “I am God.” Look at me. When you see me, you see the Father. The Father and I are one. When you know me, you know the Father. Jesus reveals God. Jesus allows us to see God and experience God. His compassion shows us God’s compassion. His gentleness shows us God’s gentleness. His mercy shows us God’s mercy. Jesus’ forgiveness reveals to us God’s forgiveness. And his sacrificial death on the cross shows us very clearly the depth of our God’s abounding love.

You can stand beside your husband’s casket and doubt the love of God. You can doubt the love of God in the cancer ward or in the unemployment line. But you cannot doubt God’s love when you kneel at the foot of the cross.

God loves you. His abundant love for you motivates everything. There’s nothing our God does that is not compelled by his deep love for you. There’s nothing he allows to happen to you that is not driven by his desire to be in relationship with you today and to live with you for ever.

Peace,

Allan

Love.

The divine command is to love. Love God and love others. Period. Our Lord says there are no greater commandments. All the Law and the Prophets, everything God says and God wills, is summed up in the command to love. Always. Everyone. Period.

Now, be ready, because you’re going to suffer. You’re going to be questioned. If you decide to love, you might even be mistreated or ostracized. Don’t be surprised if you lose the popularity contests when you choose to love God and love others. Love, period, as a command, as a commitment, as a way of life – that doesn’t fly with this world and all its groups.

But our God is not a group. He’s not a state or an institution or a party or a possession or a race. Hallelujah! He is the eternal Creator of heaven and earth and the loving Father of us all. And his love is everlasting. His love is open and welcoming. It’s inclusive and courageous and compassionate. And it has no fear.

Love doesn’t tear down, it builds up. It never divides, it always unites. And it doesn’t applaud leaders who promote hate and bigotry and division and violence as a way to get things accomplished. Love is humble, not arrogant. It doesn’t boast. It doesn’t repay evil for evil.

All the preaching, all the prophesying, all the giving – it’s worthless, it has no value if there’s no  love. The Bible says love is more important than faith and knowledge. Love is more important than hope and good works. Love takes precedent over our worship assemblies and our voting records. It’s more important than our budget meetings and party platforms and theological positions. Love is bigger and more important than any issue that can possibly be out there in our local paper or on the national news. And if that’s true – and we know it is! – we must be more committed to loving others than we are to any of those issues.

We have to place unconditional, God-ordained love in the primary position of our hearts and minds and in God’s Church. All our time and energy, all our passion and strength, must go toward love. Period.

Whatever you do as a child of God and a disciple of Christ must be done in love. If anybody tells you to do otherwise, if you get an email insisting that you forward something that’s not loving, if any leader or group urges you to act in any way toward anybody or other groups that’s not loving, you know that person or that group is not under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

If I don’t love, I am cutting off the very expression of God’s nature in my body and soul. To not love is to act opposite of our Lord. Love is where we find our ultimate fulfillment and realize our potential as God’s people. It’s not love, but… It’s never love, maybe… It’s not love, under certain conditions… It’s just love. Period.

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Luka Doncic is only 23.

Go Mavs.

Allan

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