Category Archives: love

Feb 6 2012

A Grace Suitable for Sinners Like Me

Certainty and confidence should never become permanent fixtures in our lives. Yes, there are times of ebullient fortitude when everything just clicks, and we seem to be pretty victorious believers. But I assure you, this is only a temporary state. It isn’t the normal Christian life. And yet, we strive to make this consistency our Christian life.

Gloomy thoughts will often prevail; our fears and doubts become complete seasons of time. There will be doubts and frustration.  I start to lose my passion for Christ, it just trickles away. And since nature abhors a vacuum, other desires and interests move in. I slide into something quite compromised, and what I previously condemned.

It is at these times we must absorb the truth.  It is not your hold on Christ that saves you, rather it is His hold on you that is significant. It’s not how tight we hold on to our Father’s hand, but His grasp on yours. He has soaked up all our sin, and become guilty of it all. He has drawn it all away. He blots it all up with His white heart.

The mercy of God will insist on Him holding you close. Because of His profound love for you He becomes overprotective of you. Let none question, you are His own. Anyone who touches you, touches “the apple of His eye.”

“I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.”

J.I. Packer

Are you broken? Flawed, and stumbling? Do you think that you are a poor example of a believer? I tell you, His love is not contingent on your outward behavior. It is a Greek word, it is an “agape” love. Narrowly defined as a “unconditional love,” not related to what you deserve, earn, or warrant. It is a love given without an expectation of a corresponding love in return. This is love, and it travels with grace.

“The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them.”   

Charles Spurgeon

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Jan 14 2012

Love as an Action Verb

When I first started writing this post in my head, before I had posted it on my blog, Linda Kruschke’s Blog, back in 2009, in my head the title was “Love Is an Action Verb.” But as I thought more about it I realized there is more than one kind of love, and that love AS as action verb was just one – and in my opinion the best – form of love.

Four Kinds of Love

In our impoverished English language we use the word love in many different ways. I love my spouse, I love my dog, I love chocolate, I love my new shoes, I loved that movie I watched last night, I love God. Surely we don’t have the same feelings about all of these things, yet we use the same word. In the parts of the Bible that were originally written in Greek, there are four different Greek words that we translate love:

  • Storge – refers to the love that is felt between family members and close relatives.
  • Philia – refers to the love that is between friends.
  • Eros – refers to deep emotion or passion that is felt between lovers and spouses.
  • Agape – refers to the kind of love that God has for us and is what I mean by love as an action verb.

Agape is a kind of love that is about giving, not about getting. God showed us what agape is by His incarnationa as Jesus Christ and by His death on the cross to pay for our sins. Agape is not just a feeling, it is what God is. He acts towards us in the way that He does not because of how He feels about us, but because of who He is; because He chooses to love us with an agape love.

Agape is a type of love that we can, if we choose, combine with any one of the other three kinds of love. We can go beyond how we feel about others and truly love them in the way that God loves us. C.S. Lewis put it this way in his wonderful book Mere Christianity:

“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you love your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find out one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Agape and Philia

A couple of years ago, I went to the beach with some old friends and had an opportunity to practice agape with someone towards whom I feel philia. Before I left home for the weekend, I received an email from one of my friends saying it would be really great if the house we were renting was all warmed up, with the water turned on and 7-layer bars baking in the oven, when they arrived. These friends had a much longer drive than I did, and she knew I would arrive at the house several hours before they did.

I can tell you that I did not feel like driving by myself at night in the pouring rain to Cannon Beach, I did not feel like hunting around outside in the wind and rain for the water valve to turn on the water, and I really did not feel like baking cookies in the gas oven in a kitchen I am unfamiliar with. But I chose to do all of those things anyway because I love my friends and wanted to make them happy. I combined the philia I felt with agape I have learned from God and received blessings in return.

Agape and Eros

In our society today a high percentage of marriages end in divorce. Often the reason cited is that one spouse doesn’t love the other anymore; that feeling they had when they met is gone. The type of love that can disappear in a realationship is eros. Now eros is important for couples to be attracted to each other and get married, but it cannot, by itself, sustain a lifelong commitment. To create a lasting marriage, a couple must combine eros with agape. Each spouse must act as if they love the other even when they don’t feel like it or are angry or annoyed by the other spouse. A simple text to say “I love you,” a special dinner that your spouse likes, doing housework to lighten the other’s load, a hug and a kiss at the beginning and end of each day – all of these actions are examples of agape.

Who do you need to love (agape) today?

Each day we need to make a conscious effort to incorporate agape love into our interactions with those around us. Who is God calling you to love today? Don’t feel like it? As Nike would say, “Just do it.” After all, love as an action verb can be a blessing to others that is returned to you in even greater measure than you give.

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Dec 22 2011

The Light Side, the Dark and Amazing Grace

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

― Brennan Manning

Perhaps there are a few things we need to more fully grasp.  There is a real and definite, “life of grace.” And it’s more than a polished “niceness” or even an agreeable congeniality.  It is Grace, and when you do connect with it, it’s like touching a bare wire. The first time, don’t be surprised if it throws across the room figuratively speaking.

There is a special perception of grace.  We must locate it and then live off its fatness. One of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott wrote,

“I do not understand the mystery of grace –” only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

After just several sentences of writing this post, I simply come to this same place.  I know precisely what grace is, but I can’t tell you. I would like to, very very much. It simply is beyond a definition, and yet, I can tell you it is real. When you reach out and grab it, you suddenly realize that you have been “taken apart,” and then reassembled in a changed way.

Manning talks about “acknowledging my whole life story.” There are very dark times, times when we actively promoted and revelled in our personal evil. I can tell you of many things in my own behavior that would curl your hair and demand justice.

But the ‘light-part’ needs to be recognized.  It does exist. But unquestionably I have done much more evil than good. On my knees recently, I’ve realized I have committed more sin as a believer, than I ever did in my darkness, before Christ. I was completely overwhelmed.

As I get familiar with my evil, it really “schools me”. It drops me into God’s classroom of grace. He tutors me, over and over. I learn of mercy, and grace, love and kindness. All which can only be decrypted by one simple word, “undeserved.” If you know that single word, heaven itself will open up like a golden sardine can.

The impetus of Christmas, and this wonderous incarnation, and this astonishing nativity is worth the focus we give it.  But all of it pivots on grace.  Grace was the total reason it all happened like it did.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

“You are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us—in one stroke he became poor and we became rich.” 

[2 Corinthians 8:9, top ESV/ bottom MSG]

Sometimes we need a dramatic change in our perception of the truth. What I mean is this. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we seem to naturally drawn to hard things. We are curious about the Second Coming, the Trinity, the doctrine of healing/tongues, the proper formula to speak at baptism, women in ministry, and the like.

But perhaps what we really should do is think about forgiveness, kindness, servanthood, and faith and evangelism.  We will often make small things big, and big things small.  We really should understand the density of things spiritual. We then can submit to their focused work more fully. If you are going to take a Geometry test tomorrow, it isn’t wise to take on English lit.  There is just an intelligence and a wisdom in it.

Grace is one of those challenging things for us, quite “Amazing”. It has such beauty and perfection, that men could never dream it up. It’s like an ocean where a child can splash, and yet it’s depths are still unfathomed and unexplored.

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Dec 20 2011

A Rose in the Snow

Merry Christmas, dear ones!  I can only hope, and also pray that Jesus will direct and keep you in His care.  I’m looking to a Christmas a thousand years from today, when He will bring us all together.  I think that we’ll all kick back, and we will try to remember Christmas, 2011.  We will most likely say, “But that was so long ago, it feels like a dream, I’m not sure now…”

Like me, I trust your deepest hopes are pinned on an incredible grace.  The gifts that are for me, under the tree are fabulous.  But we have been given a gift, of gifts.  It is something that ‘rocks our world’.  It’s called ‘eternal life’.  It has been given to us freely, and without any stipulations.  We’ve been ‘cut-loose’ from the tangled mass of sin.  We are now very much free.

I know I need to learn to live like a free man.  But by extending myself and straining, I can just touch this grace, I pull it in and take and make it as my own.  Jesus has freed me, and I want to walk in truth, with Him, and with you.

Love to all of you from Brokenbelievers.com!

 

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Dec 17 2011

The Virtual Yule Log

I love Christmas.  I love what Jesus has done in bring peace and joy to each one.  Unquestionably, this time of the year can be difficult.  Those of us who struggle as mentally ill believers find that things are more tinsel than terrific.

This is a perfect 20 minute break in your work day at the office or to escape from the kids!

A virtual yuletide video fireplace right on your computer screen, any time you want! With highest quality video, stereo audio and high definition TV picture resolution.

First make sure you select the “HQ” icon at the bottom of the widescreen video for HDTV quality, and the button that opens the video to FULL SCREEN so it fills your entire computer monitor. Dim the lights if you can, and sit back to relax and listen. We have selected six of the softest songs from Sam’s album “On This Night”, mixed together to blend smoothly, and with a bit of invigoration at the end with Sam’s self penned song “All I Need This Christmas”, to get you back on track to your daily routine. The order played in the video is:

1) THE FIRST NOEL
2) LITTLE DRUMMER BOY
3) THE CHRISTMAS SONG
4) HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
5) ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH
6) ALL I NEED THIS CHRISTMAS

Please enjoy this.  Both Linda K and myself want you to understand Jesus and what He means to those “who walk with a limp.”

Dec 15 2011

A Spot for You, No Matter What

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.”

(Isa. 26:3)

All we need to do in time of sorrow and loneliness is to stay our minds upon God, to trust Him, to rest in Him, to nestle in His love. We remember where John was found the night of the Lord’s last supper with His disciples, – the darkest night the world ever saw, in the deepest sorrow men ever knew, – he was leaning on Jesus’ breast. He crept into that holy shelter to find quiet.

John was kept in perfect peace during all those terrible hours. Everything appeared to have slipped away and there was nothing that seemed abiding. But John crept into the shelter of love and simply trusted, and was kept in holy peace.

A beautiful story is told of Rudyard Kipling during a serious illness a few years since. The trained nurse was sitting at his bedside on one of the anxious nights when the sick man’s condition was most critical. She was watching him intently and noticed that his lips began to move. She bent over him, and heard him whisper the words of the old familiar prayer of childhood, “Now I lay me down to sleep.”

The nurse, realizing that her patient did not require her services, and that he was praying, said in apology for having intruded upon him, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Kipling; I thought you wanted something.” “I do,” faintly replied the sick man: “I want my heavenly Father. He only can care for me now.” In his great weakness there was nothing that human help could do, and he turned to God and crept into His bosom, seeking the blessing and the care which none but God can give.

That is what we need to do in every time of trial, of sorrow, – when the gentlest human love can do nothing, – creep into our heavenly Father’s bosom, saying, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” That is the way to peace. Earth has no shelter in which it can be found, but in God the feeblest may find it.  –JR Miller