Tag: Bible

Love Wears Work Gloves

 “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

“Little children, let us not love in words or talk but in deeds and in truth.”

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.

You see, Bible love wears work gloves.

It labors and sweats and works. 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 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.

“You must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.”

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. But 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. That sort of love is impressive, and can’t ever be duplicated.

That disconnect is a bit disturbing.

But when do we start to realize that this love is really a verb?

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. It’s work that they can’t or won’t do for themselves. At least not yet. So we pray.

John is calling believers to a more real kind of love. His love is a love that sweats.

“The church is made up of individuals. It can do nothing except as its members work, and work together.”

     James H. Aughey

Dear reader–I really do pray for you. Your love impacts so many.

 

The Manger and the Cross

“The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as this truth of the Incarnation.”

—J.I.Packer

There is no question about it, the incarnation drives us to a point of decision. We all stand as individuals at the manger, and we leave either knowing we have gazed into the face of God; or we see nothing but a baby.

The Gospel expects nothing, and demands everything. We move through life, taking our lumps, figuring it out as we go along. As Adam’s sons and daughters we live a charmed, and albeit, a frustrated life. We are each given a spark. Some labor to fan it into flame, others grab a bucket of water.

What will you do with this God-Man, Jesus of Nazareth?

Does the fact that God became flesh, funneling himself into a baby, grip you at a fundamental level? Does it really matter? Can you live with yourself if you step away from his cradle, without giving him your heart?

The Bible tell us that the squalling infant Jesus came and developed into a man. That “man-god” went on to teach, preach and heal at astounding pace. In three years of ministry, he lit up his world. Everywhere he went, he was always the eye of a hurricane.

The Bible teacher John MacArthur posits this for us:

“If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: “God with us.” 

We tend to focus our attention at Christmas on the infancy of Christ. The greater truth of the holiday is His deity. More astonishing than a baby in the manger is the truth that this promised baby is the omnipotent Creator of the heavens and the earth!

There were many who saw the babe, but did not see the salvation.

Make a decision, and then keep making it.

So what are you going to do? Will you decide to follow him into his light and love? I feel compelled to ask you, do you know what is real? This Christmas we are celebrating the birth of God into the child, Jesus. We must do something with him. This is a real decision point we all must make. Not to decide is a decision.

We can be sure of heaven and eternal life.

You can know Jesus definitively. Let me know of your decision to accept Christ and I will pray for you, and will send you things that will help.

“You can never truly enjoy Christmas until you can look up into the Father’s face and tell him you have received his Christmas gift.”

     John R. Rice

What Good are the Miracles of Jesus?

His touch makes the difference
His touch makes the difference

“But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” 

–John 10:38

The healing’s Jesus boldly attest to his claim to be God.  When we read about them, as recorded in the Gospels, we cannot doubt their real and supernatural flavor.  A normal person cannot give sight to someone who has been blind from birth.  I cannot raise a dead person, it’s simply not even in the basic realm of remote possibility.

Jesus performed hundreds and hundreds of healing’s.

Many of these are not recorded in the Scriptures except through a vague and veiled reference to them.  There were not just healing’s, but he also did miracles over natural laws.  Water gets turned into wine, He walks on the Sea of Galilee, see Him feeding 5000 people with a little boys simple lunch.

You would think that the presentation of each miracle would bring a person to faith.  But that is not the case.  We process them, and then assimilate them to the point where we can more or less nullify them.  “Sure Jesus raised a widow’s son from the dead,” we say–but then we inoculate ourselves against the truth of it.  We deafen ourselves, and by our mental silence nullify the miracle.

We roll right over it. How many miracles have we seen on any given day?

I need, I must re-visit these supernatural events again and again.  They are a tonic to my jaded soul.  These miracles require that I pick them up by their handle and make them my own.  Jesus Christ is waiting for us to accept him as supernatural, because that is what he is. Get used to it.

Does the Lord Jesus still work miracles for you?

“Remember the wonders he has done,
 His miracles, and the judgments he pronounced,”

–Psalm 105:5

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Job’s Friends, They Want to Help!

By John Piper
(The following is an edited transcript of the audio.)

Can we learn something from Job’s friends about how to help the hurting?

Absolutely. Those first seven days were their golden hour. If they had stopped there they would have been heroes, I think, because they would have shown compassion and patience. And that’s what we should learn.

When you walk into a horrific calamity you should be really slow to speak and quick to listen. You should be quick to cry, quick to hold, and quick to meet needs, bring meals, and wait upon the Lord. The theological wrestling comes later, probably. It’s different with different people.

But I think the lesson we learn from the progress of the book of Job is that while those three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—were sitting in dust and ashes, aching with their friend Job, he was helped by them. And many people are helped just by the loving presence of another.

I don’t think this nullifies the importance of truth. Let me give you an example.

I’m a colleague here with Tom Steller, who has been with me for 24 years. And Tom and I have sometimes said to each other, “It would be great to stay together long enough to die together, Tom.” And depending upon which one of us comes to visit the other in the hospital at our dying moment, we know, because of 24 or (perhaps by then) 54 years together, we don’t have to say a word. It’s all been said.

We have a common theology.

Neither of us will have to preach to the other in order to fix their ideas. We will all know that God reigns, God is good, God is loving, and God is wise. We’re perplexed, but you don’t need to preach. Let’s just take each other’s hands and pray and fight this fight of faith together.

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