A fresh bouquet

I admit it, there was a time when I didn’t want a boy to give me flowers.  Or so I thought.  That was until I got my first bouquet of flowers, twelve long-stemmed roses from my father.  Then I changed my mind.

I did not, however, get any flowers after that from a man, that I can recall, for about 14 years–except for one bouquet of half-frozen roses on Valentine’s Day waiting on my doorstep.  It was after ending a relationship, but he couldn’t stop them from coming.  As if on cue, it was a frosty Valentine’s Day, and they were half-frozen by the time I got home from college to find them.

If I’d known how hard it would be to find a man to buy me flowers, I’d have paid even more attention to my father’s roses!  I thought it was the first in a long series of bouquets, and I was sort-of right about that, but if I’d had any clue that it would be more than a decade before that series would have continued, well, I’m not sure at fourteen-years-old I would have handled that very well.

Ben has bought me far more bouquets than I would have ever imagined a boyfriend would buy me, unless I managed to walk into a fairy tale.  Well, I am way too clumsy and foolish to manage to walk into a fairy tale, but God did push me in one, and I’m so thankful for the shove. 

The last flowers Ben got me were sent to my work.  I was having a tough day, and I was called to the office to pick up a huge bouquet of brightly colored flowers.  The roses were tie-dye, and there were neon green, purple, yellow, and aqua blue daisies.  I was beside myself with joy.

But what if . . what if Ben had sent a note with those flowers and said, I know you like flowers.  I picked expensive ones out for you.  I hope you like them a lot, because these are the last flowers you’re ever going to get from me.  Take nice pictures of them, and you can look at them when you want more flowers.  Love, Ben

I would not have received the flowers with joy, but instead with grief.  My outlook would have been totally changed.  The last flowers . . ever?  As beautiful as they were, they are already starting to fade.  My roses are wilted, and, no matter what I do, I cannot make them last for the rest of my life.

For romance to thrive, a man can’t send a woman flowers one day and expect to never need to show another token of his love for her.  For a romance to die, a man needs only to think he’s already “given enough”.

Love itself is like a bouquet of flowers.  As beautiful as an act of kindness is, if it’s given on a one-time basis, the love will wilt and, sooner or later, disintegrate altogether.  From what little I know about relationships, I know that if either husband or wife believe they have ‘done their part’ to show love, that they’ve met their quota, that the rest is up to their spouse, the relationship is sure to wilt.  Love is constant.  Love keeps going.  God says it best:

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13:7, NIV)

Not once in a while.  Not until some ‘quota’ is met.  Not only if certain conditions are met.  Love keeps presenting itself as a fresh bouquet every day, a new surprise and delight in an ever-more-joy-bursting relationship.

God knows all about how to love.  In fact, He is the perfect example of love persevering.  Just look at what He has done for us.  He gave Himself for us.  He could not have given a more beautiful or wonderful gift.  And no one, no one could have raised a finger of accusation against Him if He’d never tried again to reach us.  If He’d died on the cross for us and then left us to figure out what He’d done for us.  If He’d claimed He’d filled infinitely more than His quota, exceeded even the highest expectation, gone above and beyond what anyone could ever have dreamed, and didn’t need to pursue us any longer.

He could have done that, and He could have done it even more so because, unlike a bouquet of flowers, God’s love is eternal, meaning it never fades.  God doesn’t have to keep offering up more love to us.  The love He’s already given us is constant forever (unless we reject His love).  The gift of Jesus Christ doesn’t wilt with time.  God would have been beyond-belief merciful if He had given us Jesus and offered no more.

But that’s not what God did.  Scripture tells us that God is love.  That means there’s nothing about love He doesn’t know.  When He tells us that love perseveres, He isn’t just asking us to persevere in our love.  He Himself perseveres in His love, pursuing us even after we ignore Him, deny Him, spit on Him, and try to destroy Him.  He stayed with us even after we killed Him.  There is no other love like that; only the most perfect love, only the source of love.  That is, only God Himself, the great I-AM, could have done such a thing.

Do you realize that He is still pursuing you?  Do you realize that He still wants you to be His child, still wants you to belong to His Kingdom, still wants to add your name to the population of Heaven?

If you do know that . . then what are you doing about it?  Do you send God a bouquet of love every once in a while, and then expected for your heart not to wilt?  I spent many years of my life as a pseudo-believer, shipping off bouquets of guilt offerings and petitions for forgiveness to lay on His doorstep.  But before they had even reached His door, my unfaithful heart had already begun following another idol.

Even as a believer, I am ashamed that there have been many times I have sent God what I thought to be a “wonderful offering”, something big with my time or money or effort, and expected that to “last Him a while”.  Rather than act in love, I have acted in obligation or half-heartedness or with another unloving motive.

But the longing of my heart is to give God a fresh bouquet of my love every moment for the rest of my life.  I don’t want wilting, rotting flowers from me to sit on God’s table.  I want to present Him with new tokens of my love each and every day.

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.  This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. (1 John 4:16-17, NIV)

The Pursuit of God . . the Pursuit of us

In 1948 A.W. Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God.  In 1950, he wrote a sequel called The Divine Conquest, now renamed The Pursuit of Man.

The pursuit of God . . the pursuit of man . . both?

Everything since sin has been imbalanced within us, and our perception of our most important relationship, that with God, has, too.  It seems to me that there are two “sides” which Christ followers–I include myself in them–tend to “pull for”, in a grand tug-of-war for rights: the pursuit of God, or the pursuit of man.

While not normally called by A.W. Tozer’s titles, I think they might be the most accurate terms I’ve heard.

Some believers focus on the pursuit of God.  They talk about our willingness to follow Him, our sanctification process, and our part in receiving salvation as a free gift.  They talk more about God’s grief over our sin, and how He longs for us to seek after Him.  If not careful, these believers stray into self-importance, concentrating on works, ‘weakening’ their perception of God’s authority and power, and/or legalism.

Other believers focus on the pursuit of man.  They talk about God’s selection of humanity, our justification process, and God’s election in giving us salvation as a free gift.  They talk more about God’s wrath over our sin, and how we are helpless without Him.  If not careful, these believers stray into self-worthlessness, concentrating on no-works, ‘weakening’ their perception of man’s choice and value to God, and/or determinism.

But why can’t there be two books: The Pursuit of God and The Pursuit of Man?

Here is little me, talking about an intensely debated and highly sensitive topic.  And here’s the reality.  I can’t possibly tackle this subject from an intellectual level that would impress anyone who’s really studied the issue, or philosophically in a way that would win the applause of the scholars.  In fact, I can’t even convince you to keep reading.  You may already have clicked out and I’m talking to myself. 

But the gift I do have from God is to be able to think in metaphors.  Earlier the metaphor of romance came to my mind when I was thinking about the pursuit of God and the pursuit of man.

–I love when Ben pursues me.  I want him to come to where I am.  The first time we saw each other after we met in Guatemala was in my hometown.  He drove the 17-plus hours from Pennsylvania to Missouri for a girl who couldn’t even spell Pennsylvania.  He came in my classroom at school after my students had gone, roses in hand, and I hopped in his arms.  He told me he loved me for the first time face-to-face and he gave me a pin that said God is writing my love story.

In our romance, from the point Ben called me on the phone to tell me he wanted to pursue me, he has been in pursuit of me.  From cutting his hair for me . . to giving up most of his free time to talk to me or write me cards or facebook me . . to paying for the expenses of traveling, hotels, meals for both of us, and bouquets . . to letting me eat more than half of the Belgian chocolate powdered sugar waffle . . Ben has been in pursuit of me.  He has been in such intense pursuit of me, in fact, that I have been shocked.  I have never had this effect on men before.  Apparently, he is the one. 

Now, all of what I’ve said is true, but it’s not the whole story.  If it was, I guess Ben could be accused of stalking me or at least harassing me.  If Ben had been in pursuit of me, and I was trying to run away from him, it would be no love story.

But, of course, that’s not how it is.  The rest of the story is, I have been pursuing him, too.  Not nearly so hard or so well–I don’t think I am selfless enough to go through the kind of patient pursuit he went through–but I have been pursuing him.  I haven’t bought him flowers, of course, or drove 17 1/2 hours to see him (that could be a disaster), but I have pursued him.

When he opens his arms to me, I wrap my arms around him.  When he reaches for my hand, I take his.  When he puts his arm around my shoulder, I lean into his chest.  When he tells me he loves me, I tell him I love him back.  When he does something kind for me, I often try to think of something kind I could do back for him, not out of dread or duty, but out of outbursts of zeal!

Trying to tell the story of a romance from only one side just doesn’t work.  I wouldn’t want to hear a fairy tale about Cinderella and the prince who didn’t bother to pick up her glass slipper from the stairwell of the royal ballroom.  Or a fairy tale about a prince who kissed Snow White awake from her deep sleep, and when she awoke she refused to go with him to his castle.

God really is in pursuit of us.  He loves us.  He will try the slipper on the foot of anyone willing, and He finds in that person the one who He wants to save.  And He Himself came down to us to wake us from the poisonous apple of death and lead us to His eternal Kingdom.

When we believe in Him, we are really in pursuit of Him, too.  Our pursuit certainly doesn’t match His.  We can’t compare the entire sum total of our devotion to even just one of the infinite addends of His devotion.  He has all the perfect gifts to give; we stand naked before Him with nothing but our sin to bring.  Yet He takes our sin away, and He clothes us in His perfection and lays gifts in our hands, that we may have something to give back to Him.

Pursuit of man?  He made the first move.  He gave us the privilege of full pursuit when He sent His Son to redeem us and bring us back to Him.

Pursuit of God?  Yes, that too.  He does not romance us by domination or violence.  He gave us the privilege of pursuing us, and with that pursuit comes choice on both sides.  He’s made His choice; now it’s only our choice that separates us from friendship with God.

God took the costliest risk of all time for us.  He offers us His forgiveness, righteousness, and love, but He does not force it upon us.  We can answer back with refusal, which He will not overrule, or we can answer back with our pursuit of Him.

He gives us presents of mercy, kindness, loyalty, patience, forgiveness, and so on, more than we could ever need, so that we can worship Him and hand some of the gift on to others.  Our worship of Him and our handing the gifts He gives us to others is what He receives from us as ‘gifts’.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the LORD forever. (Psalm 23:6, NLT)

. . let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding. (Romans 14:19, b, ESV)

47 Word Testimony (from Ben)

“Once I was lost in darkness. My life was all about daydreams and fantasy, always looking for a better story than my own. But now I’m walking in light. My life is about what’s real: His story, and the tiny part of His story that I’m living.”

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6, NIV)

Lucy, Desi, and Love

One of the most captivating romances to me as a child was that between Lucy and Desi Arnaz on the black-and-white television screen of “I Love Lucy”. The chemistry between the two of them seemed magnetic, far more than just acting . . and from accounts of their life, it was more than show biz. (The rest that follows is based on what I’ve heard about their lives from I believe the Biography channel and my mom, who read a book on Lucy’s life.)

Lucy was, in fact, deeply in love with Desi. We still have letters that capture her love. She was captivated by him. She adored him. He was her Prince Charming.

Desi wanted to love her, he did in a sense love her, but he could not keep his heart from wandering. In heartbreaking choice after choice, he treated her as only one of his Cinderellas.

After years of what seemed to the outside world like a storybook romance, the hidden reality of Desi’s inability to remain faithful to Lucy finally took its public toll. On May 4 of 1960, the couple got a divorce.

Years later, when Desi was an old man, he was interviewed about his life. His regret? I’m sure you know it. He could not stay faithful to the one his heart really did love. He was compassionate in his interview when he spoke of her, not belittling her, not embittered that she had divorced him. Instead, he expressed the pain of a longing heart to redo what could not be redone.

Can you relate to Desi? Can you relate to Lucy? I can. Really, we all can. All of us have two sides to our heart: the side that has been heartbroken by the suffering of this world that sin has caused.

Like Lucy, pain has taken a toll on us–not just sin we caused, but the sin of the world around. Like Lucy, we have all struggled at times feeling betrayed or disappointed because of the broken people in the broken world around us. And maybe we wonder why God, if He exists, didn’t love us enough to stop something from happening, or alleviate our pain.

Like Desi, we discover to our horror that we cannot control the lust and faithless desires of our heart. While some desires can seem good, and those are the ones we want to talk about, like getting a college education, building a great business, or having a loving family . . other desires frighten us. The ones that seek to destroy everything we feel we have worked so hard to get. You know the desires. The one that would cause a millionaire to embezzle or cheat on his taxes, to save money he will hardly even miss. The one that would cause a doctorate student to plagiarize a bit of her paper, to get it done more quickly. And the one that would cause someone like Desi, who had an adoring devoted wife, to abandon her for the other longings of his heart.

It wasn’t that Desi didn’t long for her. It was that he longed for other women, too.

How I am like Desi!

I long for God, I long for a relationship with Him. But this is not the only longing in my heart, and for most of my life, it was certainly not the strongest. Other interests–dreams, lusts, idols–drew me away from the throne of God. I, like Eve, would rather have stood naked and humiliated in the gloating presence of Satan than clothed in glory in the Presence of God.

Where do we go from here? Like Lucy, we can’t rewind our lives and take away the hurt inflicted on us, and, like Desi we can’t undo the past we so regret. We have lost the great love of our life, God, and we don’t know what to do about it, and, what’s worse, we’re not even sure we want Him back, when we feel He’s betrayed us so many times.

Well, God knew many things about us before we were even born. In fact, in actuals, , the Bible tells us that He knew EVERYTHING about us before we were born. He knew that we would all turn from Him, that our hearts would be unfaithful like Desi. And He knew that we would all be wounded by sin like Lucy. He knew that most of us we would have more trouble with anger over God for our wounds than fear of God for our sins. He knew, of course, it wasn’t His fault, but that the very anguish we blame Him for is the anguish that our rebellion brought on our own heads.

God could have left it there. He could have been like Lucy, and, so wounded by our betrayal of Him and our blame of Him for things that weren’t even His fault, abandoned us. He could have been like Desi, only rightfully so, and pulled His heart back from us to pursue only the love of other, more worthy creation, like His angels in Heaven who seek always to adore Him. But, He didn’t do that either.

Nope. Willing to be wounded, He stayed with us. Gracious and tenderhearted, He allowed us to blame Him, time and time again, for what was our own fault. When we should have raised our fist at ourselves–or at Adam and Eve–or at Satan, He permitted us over and over to raise our fist at the Heavens and scream injunctions at Him. And in His wounded heart, time and time again He has not struck us dead, has not reeled against us, has not sent masses of angels to slash us down. It’s a foreshadowing, actually, of what Jesus would do as we accused Him. As we threw up our insults all over Him, He slowly, loyally, faithfully carried OUR cross up to Golgotha to be nailed to it.

My heart aches when relationships like Lucy and Desi fail. It reminds me that, no matter how solid an earthly relationship is, Satan can get in between it. God graciously gives us an out in marriage when we can’t handle the unfaithfulness of a spouse–He grants us divorce to walk away. But does God put us away when we are unfaithful? If He did, there would be no such thing as “Christianity”.

Only if we’re sure we want to remain unfaithful for all eternity, if we never turn back to Him for His forgiveness through Golgotha, will He grant us our bill of permanent divorce. Otherwise, God graciously forgives our faithlessness every time we ask Him, no matter what we’ve done, no matter how many times we’ve wounded God’s heart . .

. . and, further still, the gift of Jesus teaches us, in essence, as best as I can paraphrase in my finite, fallen understanding of this immortal, perfect wonder: Are you filthy with your unfaithfulness to Me? Here, let me be the One who washes it all away for you.

Here’s how He really says it:

“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18, NLT)

Jesus is the one who washes us so we can be received back . . who receives us back . . He is the One who stands at the end of the aisle, waiting for us to run to Him in the new garments of flowing blood-grace He has given us . . us clutching tightly to the bouquet of love He’s placed in our trembling fingers . . racing down the aisle to meet Him . . to listen to His vows to us and to commit our lives to Him . . that we may once again be beautiful . . that the storybook romance would be fulfilled within our lives.
My verse for the year:

“Raging water cannot extinguish love, and rivers will never wash it away.” (Song of Solomon 8:7a, GW)

Have you met this Love?

Self-Piggy

When you think of addictions, what do you think of?

Alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, video games, sugar, food, social power come to my mind.

But what about addiction to self?

We all have it.  All of us want to be #1.  We are infatuated with ourselves.

Watch an NFL player score the winning touchdown.  Or listen in on a phone conversation. Or babysit a toddler.

Most of the time, what we do is totally for us.  The other part of the time, we’re able to convince people it isn’t about us when it really is.

For years, I thought the answer to my problems was through a study of myself.

That’s a good way to go crazy.

I filled out personality tests, visited with counselors, talked for hours and hours about myself to anyone who would tolerate it, and even took the Rorschach inkblot test.  What I learned the hard way was there wasn’t anything hidden about myself that I wanted revealed.  There wasn’t anything secretive that I wanted published.  It was all a deep, dark hole of sin.

Miss Piggy is definitely my least favorite Muppet, but she does make a great illustration of who we ourselves are.

Miss Piggy is this overly makeuped pig who’s spent all this money on fancy clothes for herself.  Everything is about her, and if it’s not, there’s wrath to come.  What she wants to say, she says.  What she wants to do, she does.  She’s this clunky, obnoxious, self-engrossed pestilence that the other Muppets have to put up with.

She can get away with it because she’s a puppet, and we can turn the program off of our TV anytime we want.  We don’t have to watch Miss Piggy 24/7.  So we can kinda laugh about it (some of us anyway, she mostly annoys me).

But we cannot get away from ourselves.  And in all of us lives all manner of ungodly affection towards ourselves.  It’s as if all the glory we were supposed to give God, when we broke alliance with Him, has been turned inward.  We worship ourselves.  All of us do it.  We just don’t usually recognize the self-piggy that lives inside us, because we’re used to him or her.  We’ve lived with that self-piggy as long as we’ve been a self, and we don’t know any different.

And the self-piggy can be very, very crafty.  I used to watch reality TV a lot.  There would always be at least somebody who could have competed with Miss Piggy for the most obnoxious, self-absorbed megalomaniac alive.

But . . why did I watch that?

Wasn’t it so that I could feel better about myself, by picking apart the personality flaws of someone else?  Wasn’t I, actually, being a worse self-piggy, because I was watching someone else’s pig out of infatuation with myself (in other words, to make myself look and feel better)?

Pigs are incredibly tactless in what they will eat.  Give them something, and they will eat it.  Slop, garbage, even other pigs.  They will eat anything and absolutely everything without reverence.  In the same way, our self-piggy will gobble anything and everything that stands in its path to self-fame, self-abundance, self-promotion, and self-worth.  And in our society, there are plenty of highly educated doctors who say that we’re not at fault for this; and they treat it by giving us more of ourselves.

Jesus astonishes (and often) offends us in what He said one day,

As they were traveling on the road someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go! ”

Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”

“Lord,” he said, “first let me go bury my father.”

But He told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.”

Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye to those at my house.”

But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-62, HCSB)

Jesus gets a lot of flack for what He said here, because we revolt against anyone who would slay the idolatrous pig of self inside us for the cause of the real worship of God.

Jesus was walking to Jerusalem (see verse 51).  He knew these were the last days His sandaled feet would walk the dusty villages of Israel and Samaria before He walked the road to Golgotha with a cross on His back.  In the greatest moment of self-sacrifice ever in the history of mankind, Jesus was walking towards His cross.

Along the way, followers, maybe flirting with holiness, or thinking it might improve their image, or wanting to make themselves look good before God, or wishing for fire insurance for the life to come, or for whatever other self-duplicitous reason, approach Him.  They probably think they are about to look really good.  They might even think they have all the self-sacrifice they need.  After all, aren’t they offering to follow Jesus?

The first one comes out with a wow statement, perhaps to make himself look like the most devoted follower Jesus has ever had?  Maybe he can’t wait for the prize.  What will Jesus say when this man spiels his mighty ditty?  Maybe he thinks that Jesus will nearly worship him out of admiration for his devotion.

“I will follow You wherever You go! ”

Had he practiced this, rehearsed it along the way?  Or did he shout it in a sudden adrenaline-boosting feeling of posturing?  Did he think he meant it?  Probably.  That’s the way it is with self-piggy.  We think we mean things because we ourselves are fooled into believing what the puppet inside us says to us.  We hear our own words and we think they are true.

Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”

Jesus showed the man exactly where his allegiance lie.  Maybe the self-pig inside this man was hungry for comfort or security or assurance; whatever it was, I think Jesus took it away.

The second man wasn’t actually wanting to join Jesus, or at least he didn’t say he was.  He was busy doing something we’d nearly all of us respect.  He was preparing funeral arrangement for his father.  We maybe want to say (in the blasphemous god of our self-pig), “Don’t interrupt him, Jesus!”  We want to offer this man the best psychology can offer, and maybe an anti-depressant to help.  We certainly want to hear Jesus say things like, “I’m here for you” or “Don’t worry about following me now–come when you’re ready.”

Jesus interrupts this man’s plans and speaks directly to him.  Jesus didn’t call just everyone.  Some He called and some He drew and some He let find Him.  But this man, Jesus specifically talked to, and at such a ‘bad time’.

Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”

“Lord,” he said, “first let me go bury my father.”

But He told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.”

What?  Jesus says what? 

Where is the sympathy our self-pity is so fond of hearing?  Where is the sympathy that draws the eye of everyone to feed our self-hunger?  Where is the sympathy that plays the violin of self-entitlement before us?  It isn’t here.

Jesus was choosing to die for the news of the kingdom of God.  The least this man could do was leave a dead man behind.  Jesus revealed this man’s self-pig.  Maybe it was worship for his family, or maybe in being the important, in-charge one who made the funeral arrangements, or maybe in being the one who always did what was right in society’s eyes, or maybe he had cold feet about helping Jesus and he was more comfortable staying at home.  We don’t know.  But whatever his self-pig was, I think Jesus exposed it.  And the man had only two options: face his ugly pig and give up what he thought he should do, or do what he wanted and squeal in anger & disappointment at Jesus.

The third man sounds like a great guy.  Maybe he thought he was, too.  Maybe he was a real family man, true-blue to those he loved.  Maybe he thought he couldn’t, of course, leave his family without a proper goodbye.  Maybe he thought he couldn’t just vanish on them one day (as if they wouldn’t hear about where he’d gone).  Maybe he thought he had to do things the proper way, the appropriate way.  Maybe he was willing to follow Jesus, but first he needed or he craved for his goodbye.  Maybe he was hoping all his friends and family would admire him for his ‘brave obedience to God’.  Or maybe he was just using the goodbye excuse as a cop-out to not really follow at all.

Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord, but first let me go and say good-bye to those at my house.”

But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

It didn’t work the way the man had planned.  Whatever his self-piggy was, whether it was family, or looking important in relationships, or popularity, or looking brave, or affirmation, Jesus confronted his self-piggy and he was left without an excuse.

All of these men were left to face their self-piggies or throw their anger for the exposure back at Jesus.  We don’t know what they chose.

But we do know what Jesus chose.  He chose to keep walking.  With every footprint His sandals left in the dust, He was one step closer to the footprints that would leave behind a trail of blood.  Earlier, verse 51 of the same chapter tells us,

When the days were coming to a close for Him to be taken up, He determined to journey to Jerusalem.

Verse 53b restates,

He determined to journey to Jerusalem.

And this after a self-pig squabble among His disciples about who mattered most among them, who was the coolest, who was the supreme follower, who was getting the biggest reward, who would have the best future.  Verse 46 of the same chapter tells us,

Then an argument started among them about who would be the greatest of them.

Please read Luke 9 for yourself.  There is a very real theme of the self-pig of the disciples, followers of Jesus, and others . . contrasted with the total unselfishness of Jesus, time and time again.

We, like the disciples and followers and everyone who has ever lived on this earth except Jesus have a self-pig inside us.  A pig that will consume every good thing in our lives if we let it go unmuzzled.  A pig that will destroy us.  A pig that we cannot control.

But we can surrender our pig to God to slay.  Only Jesus can destroy the selfishness within us.  He can do this because He lived without selfishness and yet He took on every consequence for our selfishness on that walk to Golgotha.  Golgotha means Skull Place (see Mark 15:22), and there, as He was being put to death by our sin, He was putting to death our sin.

If we want to live with the skeleton of self-pig left inside us, we can.  But we can leave it right there in Golgotha, at the foot of the cross, if we choose.  Christ has slain our sin nature; the decision in ours as to whether we’ll pick it up again.

He gives us this decision because He is totally unselfish.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, certain that God is appealing through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.” He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:20-21, HCSB)

Unlikely Debtor

Both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to wise and to thoughtless, I am a debtor . . (Romans 1:14, YLT)

Paul, one of the greatest missionaries of all time, saw himself as a debtor to the people he was serving . . and not just to Presidents and kings, morally upstanding people and law-abiding citizens . .

but also to Greeks and to foreigners, which can be compared as to the civilized and to the savage (GWT of this phrase).  The two groups would probably have been viewed in that day as just that: civilized and savaged.  In other words, Paul felt a debt to preach to people who both did and who didn’t know much of anything about God’s ways.  A lot of us seem to be one or the other: we either want to witness to those who have a foundation of morality and poise that resembles what we like, or we want to witness to those who are totally different from us.  Paul wanted to reach both.

Would Paul have felt himself a debtor to the women who work in the strip bars in my town?  How about to the men who, through their money, put them there?

Would he have gone door-to-door to the poorest of the poor in my town, and searched the streets for the lonely homeless he could help?  How about to the welfare-fleecers in my town?  Would he have shared the Good News with them?

Would he have visited the VA clinic?  How about the anti-war society?  Would he have even gone to the houses of those who, in the 70′s, spit on the soldiers coming back from the Vietnam war?

Would he have stopped by as many nursing homes as he could?  What about the elderly who, in their youth, beat their wives and children?  Would we have preached to them, too?

Would he would have made a special stop at the local jail?  Would he have witnessed to the drunk driver?  What about our local Federal prison?  Would his sandaled feet have stopped even in front of the cells of rapists and demented serial killers?

Would he have visited our mayor and prayed for him?  What about the politician accused or convicted of embezzlement.  Would he have paid even him a visit?

Would he have knocked on the doors of the local millionaires?  What about the doors of those who have never shared a penny with the poor, who would rather have every luxury in the world than give a crust of bread to a starving child?  Would he even have shared the Gospel with them?

Paul saw himself as a debtor.

No one was beneath him.  (See Colossians 3:11)

And no one was above him.  (See Galatians 2:6)

He would preach to the rich and poor, heroes and villains alike.  He would be gracious and respectful if he got a hearing with the President, but he would not regard him as a more precious human life or more worthy of a hearing of the Gospel than James Holmes.

Am I saying that to be sensational?  Is that really true?  Could anyone really see themselves as a debtor to share the Gospel with a man like James Holmes?

I think we forget, all too often, that Paul really was a murderer before his conversion.  In one portrayal I saw, it was suggested that he tortured Christians in the synagogue when he caught them.  While we don’t know this to be true, it is likely that he flogged Christians–the graphicness of which is lost many times to our modern day ears.

The prisons he was throwing Christians into were not like U.S. prisons.  They were terrible, awful places where you might not be fed, there was no legal restraint against your mistreatment (unless you were a Roman citizen, which few Christians in Israel would have been), and you could be freezing cold at night with not so much as a cloak provided.  If Christian brothers and sisters came to help you, they might have been thrown in prison, too.

Paul had, in his old life, believed he was better than almost everyone (see Philippians 3:6).  In his new life, he believed he was better than absolutely no one.  He wanted everyone to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  As he was thrown in prisons throughout his ministry, I don’t believe he used his time there only to write letters to the churches.  I believe he was also witnessing to all prisoners within earshot, if he was allowed to talk to them.

As modern day Christians, we devalue the debt Jesus paid for us, and thus we skimp on our allegiance to Him.  While most of us readily embrace analogies of Jesus as our Father and Brother and even King, few of us actually want to identify as His servant, bond-servant, or slave.  But all these metaphors hold true.  I think when we think “king” we have a picture of Him sitting on the throne blessing us and judging nonbelievers.  I think we miss the picture of a king that would have been readily seen in Jesus’ day: that of someone with total power, pledged total allegiance and given total obedience.

We are not only free.  As believers, we are free from the power of sin.  There’s no doubt about that.  But we are also captured by the grace of God.

We are slaves to the mercy of God, debtors to His love.  This slavery is nothing like the unjust slavery of U.S. 18th and 19th century history.  And this debt is nothing like the debt owed a loan shark.

Instead, we are in debt to the most gracious God of all, forever enslaved to be servants of His mercy.

“I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love. To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.” (God, quoted in Hosea 11:4, NIV)

Our debt is no longer one of sin, but of worship.  We owe a debt of worship to Him that we cannot pay.

Worship of God is not only singing to Him or listening to sermons, though it is that.  Worship of God is also looking at the world–His world, ruined by sin–and reaching every soul we can for Him.  We should long for more worshipers in Heaven, and more vacancies in Hell.  We should long to bring anyone and everyone to Him, and since He longs for this more than we can imagine; we are debtors to the people around us.

To those who are wise and those who are fools.  To those who are humble & broken and those who are arrogant & loud-mouthed.  To those with etiquette and popularity and those with annoying habits and isolation.  To those with public approval and those who are social pariahs.  To those who live seemingly morally inspiring lives and those who live lives worthy of the darkest human pits in Hell.

We are debtors to them, all of them, because this is how God wants it.

As believers, our role in this life is, absolutely, How can I serve _____?

Fill in the name of anyone you have ever met.

This doesn’t mean serving them in an enabling sense, but serving them in the sense God desires, that is debtors to bring the Good News of Christ Jesus to the world.

Both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to wise and to thoughtless, I am a debtor . . (Romans 1:14, YLT)

_____________________________________________

This blog owes a debt of love to all Christians who have helped my thinking in this area, especially the short movie Unbreakable, the influence of Christian missionaries, and, personally, my Sunday school teacher Kevin, Pastor Tommy, and Pastor John, whose thinking and ideas shaped much of this.  Most of all, my debt of love is to Jesus Christ, who is the Person who paid my eternal debt of sin . . who is the Person who gave me understanding of what Love really is.

Reciprocal help by faith

“What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours.” (Romans 1:12, GWT)

I wouldn’t be surprised if I wrote something like this, because my faith still needs a lot of work. But PAUL? Paul wrote that he would be “helped” by the faith of the new believers in a starter church he had never yet visited.

What’s the power here; what’s the implication?

If new believers with a lot of confusion could still help Paul’s faith, every Christian has hope to help every other Christian. There can be no caste system among God’s people. New believers can encourage even mighty pastors, even as they encourage the new believers!

No matter how new or small our faith, through Christ we have the ability to encourage every other believer in the world, should we come in contact with them.

So the question is, “Whose faith will I get to build up today?” No Christian is out of my reach. An encouraging thought for the morning!

“What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours.” (Romans 1:12, GWT)

I cannot forget this pastor.

1 Corinthians 13:3, Part 2

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3, NIV)

In the first part of this little reflection of 1 Corinthians 13:3, I really talked about one side of the coin: Giving of yourself without love is not what God desires.

In the second part, I want to talk about the other side of the coin: Loving without giving of yourself is not what God desires, either.

I think there is an easy “slide” that goes something like this: God doesn’t even count all that money AND TIME people give to the poor when they have bad motives . . Just look at Jenny Sue.  She’s always helping out at the soup kitchen just to make herself look sweet.  Well, I’m no hypocrite.  I’m just not going to give my money or time to the poor.  I’ll just love God from my heart, and I’ll be real about it.

Hold on.  God wants us to give of ourselves only with love.  But that doesn’t mean He doesn’t want us to give of ourselves.

That logic doesn’t work.  What if I said, “I don’t want to you to bring home groceries if it’s going to be junk food.”  Does that mean I don’t want you to bring home groceries?

Have you ever had somebody help you in a way that wasn’t helpful, but when you suggest a way that is helpful, they get offended and don’t want to help anymore?  What they don’t understand is that they weren’t helping in the first place and they could really have been helpful if they’d listened!

1 Corinthians 13:3 is not giving you an excuse to withdraw from missions or withhold contributions.  Instead, the focus is on doing everything for God for the right reason, which is love.

If God calls me to give all my money to the poor, or go serve Him in a rural village without electricity, I can’t choose to disobey Him because I don’t love.  Instead, I am commanded to obey Him in love.  Obedience and love go hand in hand when it’s God we’re talking about.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34, NIV)

Jesus isn’t asking us to think about loving.  He’s commanding us, who are believers, to love.  And we can have confidence we can obey Him because He has given us new hearts.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26, HCSB)

Early on, I told Ben how special cards are to me, especially store-bought cards, especially if they have a Hallmark symbol on them.    I grew up watching Hallmark movies with the Hallmark commercials in between movie scenes.  I often loved the commercials as much as the movies!  My little girl heart was wooed by the little boy who placed dinosaur stickers on a card for his mother and drew a Hallmark symbol on the back.  (That was probably my favorite commercial of Hallmark’s, but I could happily own DVD’s of the commercials.)

Anyway, Ben came from, well, an opposite point of view.  That holidays had been commercialized by greeting card companies to say cheap, trite sentiments and make wallets lighter.  (Apparently he hadn’t watched the commercial with the little boy and the dinosaur stickers.)

He expressed his opinion to me and I was quite a lot of unhappy about it.  First, since I had been 7 years old or so and watched my first Hallmark movie, the commercials had begun prepping me for that a knight in shining armor who was going to buy me Hallmark cards someday.

Hallmark didn’t need to target commercials to boys like Ben.  Why?  Because, one day, Hallmark-grouching boys like Ben may fall in love with Hallmark-dreamy girls like me and then they’ll be the ones in the Hallmark store, shelling out the dollars. 

And that is just what happened.  (Well, Ben does usually buy me other brands of cards, but we’re working up to the Hallmarks.  Baby steps. )

Ben realized that greeting cards need no translation into my love language.

In my head are dreams of envelopes with a gold seal.  I will open the envelope without tearing it, and inside will be a beautiful, big Hallmark card.  (I will know because, like everyone in the commercials, I will turn it over and check the back.)  And then something really romantic will happen.  Swans will sing.  Or fireworks will start.  Or we’ll be standing next to a water fountain.  Or we’ll be on an ice skating rink even though I can’t skate and will probably twist my ankle.  Or we’ll be in a forest with autumn leaves.  Or we’ll be on a rocky ocean bank with seagulls in the background.  Or maybe it’ll be over a candlelight dinner at Christmas time.

So I will open that envelope, and inside will be that Hallmark card, and then we’ll get married (we’ll have to, because he got me a Hallmark card). 

Today I opened one of the cards I have unopened still from the mailbox.  It had flowers, and cursive words on the front.  That was a real good sign.  The edge was even scalloped.  And there was a long, handwritten message on the inside.  And the card had my name above the little poem on the inside, and his name below.  It wasn’t a Hallmark, but it did cost $3.89, so I felt really good about it. 

Now why did he go and buy a commercialized greeting card for me?  He, who was once the anti-card-industry spokesperson?    I’ll tell you why.  Because he loves me!

You know, when we love God, we do things we might not do on our own.  We might give money that’s hard to give, to somebody who needs it more than we do.  We might quit our job and move to a village that has never heard the Good News of Christ.

I would never have wanted a card from Ben if he’d tossed it at me and said, “I hate these, but here you go.”  In the same way, God doesn’t want gifts of money or service that are given grudgingly or egotistically.  God wants us to give out of love.  Otherwise, the gift is as empty as a card would be from Ben if he’d grabbed the first one off the shelf, signed it fast, and jammed in an envelope.

God doesn’t want only our allegiance.  He wants our devotion.

The point of 1 Corinthians 13:3 isn’t that we don’t give.  The point of this verse is that we give from love.

I love my card, Ben.

And God loves when we give out of love for Him.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3, NIV)

1 Corinthians 13:3

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3, NIV)

This is a hard verse for me.

So many times, my mind has skated by it like a speed skater, breezing by this verse. Over top the ice of a cold heart, I’ve thought mindless thoughts like, Ah yes, love; the love chapter; isn’t love nice? . . never really looking at what God’s Word is saying.

If I had skidded to a stop, ice flecks bursting from my skates, and taken a look at the rose of 1 Corinthians 13:3, I would have realized an immediate,

WHAT?

WHAT??

WHAT!!!

This verse dismantles nearly every trophy I hold on the shelf of Christian living.

Giving to the poor?  Giving my body to hardship??  NOTHING?!?

NOTHING!!!

I’m actually a bit outraged.

Do You mean, God, that I can give my paycheck to poor children around the world . . eat pork and beans the rest of my life . . witness with a megaphone outside sports stadiums and have hamburgers and hot dogs thrown at me . . stand outside abortion clinics to pray and get screamed at . . drive a rickety old car for 20 years . . fund the education of a hundred children . . give my retirement savings to missionaries . . adopt an orphan . . go to a village without plumbing or electricity and spend the rest of my years there . . skip desserts to feed the homeless . . raise money for a new hospital in a developing country . . be on call 24/7 for girls in crisis pregnancies . . AND build a well with my own sweat and tears for a village BUT not get ANY credit for it because I didn’t do it out of love???

Something in me wants to become VERY indignant.  Something in me wants to protest, “That’s not fair!”  And something in me wants to fold my arms and glare up at God.

Do you know why?

Because it’s second-nature for me not to do things out of love.  Really, it’s first-nature.

I don’t have to try not to love someone.  It’s no work at all.  That doesn’t mean I naturally treat everyone like scum and abuse them.  It just means I can very easily (with or without thought) place my needs above theirs.

I can be discreet about my selfishness but still act selfishly.

I can pretend I care but really be faux listening in faux sympathy so that someone will say of me, Oh, that saint, she is so saintly.

I can carry on as though I’m encouraging someone for their own sake, when I’m really complimenting them so they’ll compliment me.

I can plan a generous act that looks like I’m trying to hide my benevolence just so someone will catch me at doing it.

I can gossip while looking as though I’m really actually concerned about someone (who isn’t, of course, present to the conversation).

I can even pretend to be very sweet while throwing out daggers.

I may not usually identify myself in the moment as acting without love, but when I look back, oh, I can see it.

How often do I really love somebody?

It’s a question that I feel God’s brought to my heart lately.  It’s something I guess I’ve often assumed I had a lot of.  After all, people usually say I’m sweet and kind and loving.  I guess that translated to me as really being those things.  But when I stop and assess my motives,

How often do I really love somebody, defining love as 1 Corinthians 13 does?

Not. Very. Often.

Diligent?  I can be diligent.  You want a bit of self-sacrifice?  I can muster it.  You demand loyalty?  I can sometimes come through for you.  Need zealousness?  You got it.  But ask me for love?

Why is it so hard to love?

I mean, it’s easy to love in the way Jesus talks about even unscrupulous people loving: loving friends and family who are nice to you (see Matthew 5:43-48).  Hey, we can all love like that.  But that’s not really love.  That’s more like what a dog feels for the owner who is secretly dubbed Mr. or Mrs. Treatsie.

Do you think that if you didn’t have treats to offer, and your next door neighbor did, your dog wouldn’t bury his collar in the backyard and jump the fence faster than you can say Lassie?  Why do we have fences and leashes, anyway?  Isn’t it because dogs aren’t really loyal?

You can train a dog to be loyal, in response to treats and conditioning, but that doesn’t mean your dog really wants to be loyal.  Here’s a simple test.  Sit in the living room on one end of the couch with no food, and have a random stranger off the street sit at the other end with a piece of steak.

Does Fido remember who gave him the bubbly bath last night, bought Greenies every week for him, paid the $800 for surgery on his broken leg instead of putting him to sleep, bought a trunk load of squeaky toys, and filled his bowl every morning and night faithfully for the last 5 years?

Test Fido with the steak, and you will see.

. . But we can’t really be hard on Fido.  After all, don’t we do the same?  I mean, does it matter how many times your husband changed the oil in your car, or your wife cooked you dinner, at the moment you’re having an argument?  Do you think back on those happy first dates during a conflict?  Do you say, Dear, you forgot to put your dirty socks in the laundry basket for the 9,000th time today, but I was just thinking about that time you bought me that beautiful bouquet of roses as a surprise.  Do you remember that?  Wasn’t that wonderful?

Our hearts are set on self-fulfillment, not on love.

To love with the hearts we have as sinners is like asking a snail to get his doctorate in biochemistry online in two semesters.

It’s not happening.  But if we know we believe in Christ, He can do what no amount of effort on our part can: He can take our old hearts away and give us new ones.

That doesn’t mean we immediately love perfectly when we become believers.  We have to learn how to use our new hearts.  But how do we learn?  Not from instinct.  Instinct will cause us to try to use our new hearts like we used our old ones.

The only way we can ever love is for Christ to teach us how to love with our new hearts.  We learn by listening to, obeying, and closely following Him.  He is the only one who can teach our new hearts to beat, and He is the only one who can inspire us to do anything out of a motive that is not gain nothing selfish.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3, NIV)