Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
(Taking a break from my serious stuff.)
Found this recently and felt it might bless (or humor) you. It is almost a Bible survey course, and as about as brief as you can go without losing any kind of comprehension at all. I so hope you like this, if just for the novelty of it. I wish I could attribute it to someone. I have no idea. I wish them the best.
1 John 3:17-18, ESV
Love is a noble idea, it’s admired and extolled by practically everyone–we see it in our music and poetry, ethics and religion. For the most part it’s a word for something decent and virtuous and honorable. It’s a good thing, but I’m afraid it’s not always scriptural.
It labors and sweats. Bible love has chores to do, and it actively looks and sees what needs to be done. 1 John 3 tells us that we shouldn’t deceive ourselves and only see the world’s definition. That love that a believer has is to be different.
Love, in John’s eyes, is most assuredly “doing.” It burns spiritual calories as it labors to serve our brothers and sisters. Love finds things it can do–it doesn’t just talk but it gets busy. Love sees the need and then gets down to serve.
1 Peter 1:22
Working (serving) has nothing to do with our salvation, that is a free gift. We’re saved by grace through the blood of Jesus–that’s a given. And this love isn’t drudgery, as a matter of fact, working and serving each other is a joy. The deepest kind of joy there is.
Our words, although important, are really an insufficient way of proving our authenticity. The love we serve another with isn’t “pretty poetry” kind of love. It’s so easy to just shout out truth and never ever show a working, serving kind of love.
Our prayer and intercession really begins when we go to work for someone else. (Our lunch box is our Bible.) We read it and it energizes us to work for one another. When we pray we truly are loving another brother or sister. Work that they can’t or won’t do for themselves. At least not yet. So we pray.
Ezekiel Hopkins, “A Puritan Golden Treasury”
Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. (Mark 2:19)
This was Jesus’ idea. He was bringing correction to the lives of those who were very serious, and especially those who felt the most religious. Often, our native tendency is asceticism. We evaluate ourselves religiously by our prayers and our fasts.
Jesus pointed out that mournful faces are not indicators of a pious life. How can His disciples mourn when Jesus the bridegroom is nearby? His disciples are going to a wedding, not a funeral!
Without question, the New Testament believers are to know repentance and self-examination. We should grieve over our sins, but that grief is to be based on hope and joy. Jesus changed everything.
The disciples could not mourn and fast while Jesus was present. He does not wish His disciples to go mourning and fasting when they have no occasion for such exercises. His words are a defense of Christian joyfulness. Christ wants His friends to be glad. There is an utter incongruity in a sad and mournful Christian life. It does not make sense in light of what Jesus has done.
Our sins have been forgiven–erased, cleansed, and washed away. We have been dipped into the righteousness of the Son of God. The fierce enemies of our souls have been eradicated by Jesus. All of this is to bring out a song from a grateful heart. We revel in the smile of Jesus and walk under the banner of beautiful love. We have His forgiveness and have been given His favor. We should be radiant!
Mark 4:28, NLT
This concept of physical growth is now applied by Jesus to us. He has cultivated us, and we must insist on a maturation. We sprout, and extend ourselves in a growth that means, ‘there is now life’ here. Life is not mechanically rigid. It has nothing to do with plastic, steel girders or cement. It is emphatically not a concrete issue. It is life! It has a very different definition.
Jesus takes a seed, that seed splits open. A green leaf pushes through, and it is growing! Put into the ground, and watered, it will have life! It is living. This all seems easy and obvious now. “Of course,” we say. “I understand that.” But when Jesus taught this (even as simple as it is) the implications were profound. The earth seemed to shake when He declared this truth.
This principle of life, and growth, and greenness was not at all descriptive of Pharisees. The legalistic and cold hardness was unmoving, unrelenting and unyielding. For many, this is a really major issue–the spiritual life was supposed to be have more organic freshness, then this.
But a living life of spiritual growth should be more than that; it was meant to be energizing and life-giving. I remember seeing a mannequin in a mall (it was dressed in nicer clothes than I was.) But although this display was in human form, it was definitely inanimate. Going up to it, I tried to talk with him. I wanted to explain things of the Spirit, but he just stood there, staring. He was decidely devoid of real life.
Ridiculous? Perhaps. But having eternal life is profound. We are like department store mannequins that have been made to really live. And there is a growth that now takes place. There is a supernatural, organic development–its this that should really infuse us with the life of the Spirit. Our life is constantly and wonderfully changing, it should infuse us with a joy and elation we can’t keep a lid on.
Broken Believers 