Love doesn't...envy

Jesus says "Love your neighbor as yourself". The inherent prerequisite to being able to love others is loving yourself. We can all agree the bible talks about pride and narcissicm as being unhealthy, but the other side of the spectrum is just as unhealthy-- sometimes the problem is not people being too narcisstic but being so down on themselves they can't love others as themselves. If you do not love the person God made you to be, how will that transfer to loving people as you love yourself?
Discontentment breeds envy. When we are not thankful to the ways we've been blessed and we are not content with what God has given to us we begin to envy. Essentially at the heart of this issue is a doubting of God's goodness. "I wish I had...." or "If I just was..." Now to qualify, these thoughts and statements aren't always wrong. This wording isn't the problem, but sometimes this wording can reveal the heart problem. God has given us many things, He has made us all uniquely, we all have different skills, passions, desires and that is a good thing. We aren't mass produced robots. When we are discontent with how God has made us, we begin to look outwardly at others and see what God has given or done for them and we begin to ask, "why don't I have that?" "Why am I not like that?" Again, these statements aren't inherently wrong but they might reveal a bigger issue. You may not have that or may not be like that because God wants you to be different and unique and He has a purpose for that difference.
And so, love does not envy because love is fulfilled in God. Love finds its worth and value from God. Love doesn't envy because envy is difficult, its negative, it brings you down. I think Paul's words to Timothy apply to this ^{1 Tim. 6:6-7} "But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either." We've brought nothing in and we'll take nothing out- so we acknowledge the temporary nature of the things we can see and hold, and place our hope in the things unseen.

The Good News isn't a formula

^{1 Peter 1:24-25} For
All flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like a flower of the grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls,
but the word of the Lord endures forever.

And this is the word that was preached as the gospel to you.

I heard Josh White make the comment that the gospel isn't about reciting a certain formula-- its more about sharing what God has done for you. Reading this passage in 1 Peter and realizing Peter says THIS is what was proclaimed as the gospel, its kinda odd. When I think of preaching the gospel, "All flesh is like grass" doesn't really come to mind. Often times we think preaching the gospel = the four points of evangelism. Jesus' commission for us to preach the gospel was taken by his friend Peter apparently differently than the way I normally see it. Preaching the gospel should be about proclaiming good news (in whatever form that takes) not necessarily getting through a formula.

Prayer

Our Father in heaven,
Your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
[For Yours is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.]

We've all seen or heard this prayer, either in person or on T.V. It's kind of ironic that by the time the prayer comes to, "and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"--it seems that we've already fallen into the issues associated with rote memorized prayer. We should realize the gravity of that prayer. We are essentially saying "God, treat me how I treat other people. Just as I have forgiven other people, forgive me." If we reevaluate the "as we also have forgiven our debtors", we realize part of prayer is God opening up the door for us to partner in the answer to the prayer. When we pray "Father your will be done on earth" what if God says "Okay, bring my will to _______" Part of prayer is about partnering with God in what He's already doing on earth, because His Kingdom isn't far away, its at hand.

Fans and Followers

The Gospel accounts distinguish between the fans of Jesus and His disciples. Repeated throughout we see the construction "Then Jesus said to the crowds[or multitudes] and to His disciples."

What distinguishes a fan from a follower? I think of a weird corollary between some LA Laker fans and the fans of the German National Soccer Team. When the LA Lakers, made it to the finals, all of a sudden Laker flags were flown from cars, people bought t-shirts and jerseys and Laker fever overtook the city--but only once they got to the Championship game. I'm sure you've experienced the same with "fair-weather fans." The German National Soccer Team fans on the other hand prepare 3.5 years in advance for the World Cup. Songs are played on the radio and sung in pubs. People paint cars, get tattoos and when the game finally happens nobody is caught dead doing anything BUT watching the game. I was in Germany when they lost in the Semi-Finals last World Cup, it was as if everyone in the room had just watched their best friend or their mother die.

Fans put on the jerseys, watch most games, know the stats and the records. Followers prepare, they get ready for the season, they wait hours for the chance to meet the players or coaches. Fans put the stuff away when the season is over, they talk about how they wish the team had done this -or-that differently. Followers wear their colors proud after the season, they anxiously wait for new acquisitions and the next season.

I'm so thankful I have the opportunity and the invitation to be a follower, invited to the special team party, and given the real game worn jersey of the all-star player. Perhaps a weird analogy, but I think it fits. The great thing is we all have been invited to be followers, not just fans.

Sight to the Blind

I read once that the difficulty of Jesus' type of ministry isn't giving sight to the blind....its teaching people who can see that they might really be blind.

^{Isaiah 42:16-17} I will lead the blind by a way they did not know; I will guide them on paths they have not known. I will turn darkness to light in front of them and rough places to level ground. This is what I will do for them, and I will not forsake them. They will be turned back and utterly ashamed --those who trust in idols and say to metal-plated images "You are our gods!"[my emphasis added]

From cover to cover, the Bible is about God healing the blind.

When I read this passage I think of my own past blindness. As someone who was pretty good, didn't really do anything that bad, and believed that my own goodness, or my effort to try and make the right decisions was what God asked of His creation.
Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see.

God's Blessing

Numbers 6:22-26

The LORD said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

“‘“The LORD bless you

and keep you;

the LORD make his face shine on you

and be gracious to you;

the LORD turn his face toward you

and give you peace.”’



Read in verse 22 and 23: God instructs Moses to tell Aaron to tell the Israelites how God is going to bless them-- God partners with His image bearers to bless His creation.

Love is...patient

Funny that the first thing Paul lists in 1 Corinthians about love is that it is patient. Thats not what I've learned from movies, TV and a lot of friends. I learned in middle school and high school that love was a feeling you got. Love justified actions. People did some crazy stuff and the explanation sometimes was "They're in love." I noticed it became a justification for crimes even, murder and abuse. A man or woman cheating on their spouse was caught in the act and was attacked in anger. The woman was cheating on her husband, she REALLY loved this other guy though. The husband loved the wife so much he couldn't bear to see her with another man, so when he did, he killed her.

I'd argue thats not love, thats a cheap imitation of what God calls love. I've never been in that situation and I pray I never will, I don't mean to make judgements and I know these situations aren't easy. I'm not pretending (nor would God I beleive) to downplay the real pain, and hurt of being cheated on and I'm also not downplaying passionate feelings one human being might have towards another. But if love is patient, where does patience fit into this example of a real situation referred to as love? The decision to make is either: love isn't patient, or that's not love. I vote #2.
Love is patient- that means love waits, it's literally "long-suffering". I don't know what it looks like for everyone, but I know I want to love patiently, as God loves me and as I know real, authentic love is where life abundant is found.

Life's Questions

We as Western Europeans want teachings and philospophies that answer the questions: "Does God exist, is there a heaven, what happens when I die, is there a meaning to life?" Notice that Jesus teachings, are structured in such a way as to raise more questions than provide answers. This fits right in with the ways Rabbis taught and talked in the first century, argument was made through questions and questioning.

^{Matthew 5:43-48} “You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary? Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This passage brings up way more questions, How do I love my neighbor ? Why do I pray for people who persecute me? Why does God cause the sun to rise on the evil and the good ? Really, what will happen to me if I only love the people who love me? How in the world can I be perfect as God is perfect?
I think part of the reason Jesus taught/ talked like this is so that we could never fulfill His teachings apart from a reliance on Him. None of those questions can be answered apart from a relationship with Him and a reliance on His spirit. The new covenant is not like the old one, Jesus did more than heighten the interpretation of some laws and declare foods clean--He presently provides us with the power to live out His teachings.

2 Timothy 2:11-13

This saying is trustworthy:

For if we have died with Him,
we will also live with Him;
if we endure, we will also reign with Him;
if we deny Him, He will also deny us;
if we are faithless, He remains faithful,
for He cannot deny Himself.

Our God

^{Isaiah 41:17 -18} The poor and the needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, Yahweh, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the barren heights, and springs in the middle of the plains. I will turn the desert into a pool of water and dry land into springs of water.

Notice what God promises to do. He promises to take the least likely scenarios and situations and use them to provide for the poor and the needy. He says He'll make the unthinkable, unimaginable happen. Thinking back to Genesis 1, God's creation is accomplished through His speech, as He declares something it comes into existence. God states in this Isaiah passage He will accomplish these things, the Creator God of the entire universe loves His creation and provides. Tying these 2 together, God's creation through speech in Genesis 1 and His statement of using deserts to form pools of water, think about what God says about us. We often think of ourselves as spiritually void, empty, broken and worthless,which living apart from God and without Him we are. But for those of us in Him, realize what God says about us, God speaks these things over us. And if He has spoken these things, saying "you are...", God's speech carries power.

Isn't there somebody else better?

^{Matthew 1:3} Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar

In Jesus' geneaology we see a list of characters who are not really the gold standard of living for God. What's crazy and cool is to look back at scripture and look at the stories of people who messed up time and time again and how God used these people to bring about the birth of the Messiah. For those of us who have already come to know Jesus, sometimes we find it hard to beleive that God would use us. Often times the thought is, "I'm not smart enough, good enough, christian enough, I don't know as much as I'd like to about the Bible and I don't have the answers to all the questions."

As my old buddy Andrew Foote used to say--God is in the habit of drawing straight lines with crooked sticks. I'd even go as far to tweak this saying to God is in the business of making straight sticks out of crooked sticks. Read Genesis 38, God uses human mistakes to work together something good. This story shows that just becuase something good comes out of the situation doesn't make any of it easier. There was mourning , trouble, arguing, hardship but in the end, beyond what Judah and Tamar would ever see, good came out of it because God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. This doesn't mean it doesn't matter what we do, read Romans 6...If God used them, couldn't He use you?

Isaiah 9: God's zeal

^{Isaiah 9:7} Of the greatness of His government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
will accomplish this.

This one verse is thick with important stuff about Jesus. The overall tone, ending this section of Isaiah's prophecy about his coming Messiah, of greatness, peace, justice and righteousness is summed up in the fact that God's zeal will accomplish it. Notice it is not human zeal to make it happen, but God who is most committed and able to make His plans happen. Whats cool is that in the case of the Messiah, and I believe with God in general, we don't have to worry about not being able to accomplish something God wants to have happen-as He is eternally more committed to having His will be done than we are. That is such a relief because then we don't have to worry about the things God has called us into, we can rest in the fact that God's zeal for where He has called us to will accomplish it.

Questioning ourselves

^{Exodus 3:11} But Moses asked God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
After Moses' asks for God's name ^3:14 God replied to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.'

God commisions Moses to a specific mission. Moses' response is a questioning of himself and his own abilities. "Who am I?" Moses asks of Himself. I think it is no coincidence that as Moses questions his own identity, God's identity seems to be a response to Moses' questions. Moses' question of "Who am I?" is answered by who God is. Moses asks "Who am I?" and God soon after says "I AM." Our questions of "Am I good enough? Am I smart enough, am I well-spoken enough?" are all answered in God's goodness, God's intelligence and God's power to speak. When we question ourselves, God is there to say "you don't have to do it alone."

^{2 Tim. 1:7} "For God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind."

This hit me like a freight train the other night...

^{1 Cor. 13: 1-3} If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understnad all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

To some up what Paul says, I think he's saying " If I [insert anything here] but do not have love, I have nothing." Paul is saying we can go through all the motions, do all the right things, act righteously, even experience manifestations of the Holy Spirit, sound smart and get great revelation from God--but without love, it's of no purpose.God showed me I had begun to start to drift away from the centrality of love. God loves you, He asks you to love Him, and love His creation. His love for you is not dependent or contingent on your love for Him but He knows that every fullfilment you seek, every hope, every dream, every relationship, every pleasure, every pain, every aspect of life was designed to be lived in love with God. Apart from that love, if we choose to reject it, we live a fake, counterfeit version of the life God designed.

Isaiah 9: Peace with God and coming Peace

^{Isaiah 9:5} For the trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire.

This is an amazing promise about what the Messiah will accomplish in the world. On the one hand, peace will be brought, the boot of battle will be burned as fuel, because in the culmination of God's coming Kingdom, boots and the weapons/ instruments of war are not needed. Obviously at this point we don't see this fulfillment entirely, warfare and violence are still commonplace in our world, but there will come a day when all of that pain, and destruction is done away with completely.
The other half of this amazing promise says that the bloodied garments of war will be burned in the fire. This may apply as the boots of battle, referring to the impending peace that will come and how the instruments of warfare will be no longer needed. But, it could refer to the forgiveness that Jesus offers. The bloodied garments of war, the evidence of violence and destruction, are burned in the fire and completely done away with. As Jesus forgives and makes us into new creations, born-again, the old bloodied garments of our past mistakes and past problems and past decisions are done away with 100% completely forgiven. That's why there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Isaiah 9: relief from oppression

²The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
a light has dawned
on those living in the land of darkness.
³ You have enlarged the nation
and increased its joy.
The people have rejoiced before You
as they rejoice at harvest time
and as they rejoice when dividing spoils.
⁴ For You have shattered their oppressive yoke
and the rod on their shoulders,
the staff of their oppressor,
just as You did on the day of Midian.
⁵ For the trampling boot of battle
and the bloodied garments of war
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
⁶ For a child will be born for us,
a son will be given to us,
and the government will be on His shoulders.
He will be named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷ The dominion will be vast,
and its prosperity will never end.
He will reign on the throne of David
and over his kingdom,
to establish and sustain it
with justice and righteousness from now on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this.

 For the Jews hearing this from Isaiah, they would have understood what it was like to be under an oppressive yoke, in fact well into the time of Jesus' ministry, some hundreds of years after these words were first spoken, Jews understood what it meant to be under oppressive yokes. In Judges, Midian was an oppressive nation that ruined crops, attacked Israel and forced them to live in mountains and caves for 7 years. Under Babylonian rule, Greek rule, and Roman rule, Jews experienced oppression from outside rulers. A prophecy that said one day they would be relieved from this yoke was gladly welcomed. In the days of Jesus taxes had to be paid to the temple but also to Rome and tax collectors made all their money from exploiting and taking extra commissions from the people they collected taxes from. There was a tax on land, tax on travel, and a tax simply on being alive called a "head tax." So when Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, most people expected the releif of their oppression to come in the form of a governmental revolt, especially because they understood all of the revolutionary vocabulary of Jesus and His followers. What most didn't understand is that Jesus' Kingdom was not of this world, but of so much more.

^{John 8:34} Jesus responded, “I assure you: Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. ³⁵ A slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever. ³⁶ Therefore, if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.

Jesus presented not a relief from governmental oppression but an oppression that run deeper,a freedom from a slavery of the soul.