Tag: love

Categories
Christian Living

To Be or To Do – Is Character Important?

Being or Doing?
What is better in God’s eyes?

I believe that His statement: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” answers the question.

I remember one trip when I was a youth minister where the adult leaders were asked: “What are the things that have most excited you about youth ministry this past year?”

One after another, people stood up and shared: We went on a mission trip. We did a service project. We performed a special choir musical for our church. We did this, or We did that.

As I listened, I thought, “I’m not sure these are the things that we ought to be “most” excited about.”
There was no mention of life change, salvation, or deeper discipleship.
It seems most of us were excited about the things we were doing.
Not about the things our students were “being.”
A tragedy.

What we ought to be most excited about are the changes we see in the people around us as they spend more time developing the character traits of Jesus.

In our “busy” society, we seem to believe that the more we “do” for someone, the better. That leads us to think that the more we “do” for the church, the more God appreciates it.

But is that truly the case?
Or can we be in the habit of “doing” in such a way that it is not an honor to God?

God doesn’t want you doing Christian things, without embracing His character traits.
He desires mercy, because He is a merciful God.
He desires love, because He is love.
He desires patience, because He is the most patient.
He desires purity, because He is a God of holiness.

There are many verses where God indicates His frustration with His people for how much they were “doing for Him” without “being” the people He had called them to be.

(here are some of those passages, if you care to read any of them:
1 Samuel 15:22; Ps 40:6-8; Ps 50:7-15; Ps 51:15-17; Isaiah 1:11-16a; Hos 6:6; Amos 5:21-24; Micah 6:6-8)

What does God want from you?
Does He desire that you do things for His kingdom?
Sure, but not if you refuse to develop His character.

Let’s make sure our “being” matches us with our “doing.”

Categories
Relationships

Defining Love

How do you define love?
“Always giving the other person everything they want”?
Sounds good to me! Start sending me gifts!

As a parent who loves your children, do you always give them everything they want?
Of course not.
When the tantrum breaks out on the floor at Walmart, do you say – “Well, I didn’t know you wanted that toy/candy/live animal so badly. I love you, and you want it, so yes, I’ll buy it for you.”?
I highly doubt it!
We can easily see how that is not love.

Love is always doing what is best for the other person, and that might mean telling them “no” to something they want.

If a pastor, minister, or church leader loves the people in his church, will he always give them everything they want?
No. Sometimes, the loving thing requires that he share with them the truth – and that can hurt.

God condemns the priests long ago telling them:
“Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost.”

Many ministers in America today have “left the weak and crippled to limp hopelessly on in their sin, unaware that they aren’t walking normally.” By not wanting to offend anyone, we are not being loving neighbors, because it isn’t loving to only give someone what they want. “We must also give them what they need—the truth.”

…We have all these happy, friendly churches with happy-looking people happily doing work for God, and yet, beneath the surface, nothing is making sense. Husbands aren’t sacrificing for holiness and right living, wives are giving up, and behind every whitewashed wall are dead-men’s bones.

…somewhere along the way, we decided to stop defining holiness too clearly because we didn’t want to seem too different from other people, scared of what people might think and scared that we might hurt our relationships at home. Now we have our wish—we don’t look much different at all, and we’re too often limping along in the same fog as the lost.

Why are we scared to share? Many people wonder: “what if I seem irrelevant to them?” “Why not consider a far more frightening question – What if we are irrelevant? In our rush to seem relevant, what if we lose our saltiness as Christians and lose our purifying effect on our culture? That is true irrelevance.”
(Arterburn & Stoeker – Every Man’s Challenge)

So let’s all stop worrying about being irrelevant. Let’s stop worrying about whether everyone likes us. Let’s worry about how to tell people the truth in love (though with gentleness & reverence). Sometimes that might sting a bit, but it is the only right thing to do if we love someone else.

Categories
Relationships

Judging the Wrong Thing

Yesterday I made the crazy argument that we actually should be judging the behavior of a sign that says 'don't even think of parking here' symbolizing our judging of othersChristians (which we often don’t do) and that we shouldn’t be attacking the behavior of unbelievers (which we often find ourselves doing). How can that be right? Well, let’s take a quick look at a few verses at the end of 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul tells us:

When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside….

What? That’s in the Bible? Yep, God tells us in several places that we are to hold each other accountable as believers. We often don’t do this. One important point about this – it is to be done in love. And so often, when we actually do decide to hold someone accountable it is not done so in love, rather it is done in condemnation and arrogant pride. How is this possible when we are to be known as people who love each other as family and who should be quick to invite others into the love of our family?

So what we find is that instead of following the words of God, instead of holding each other accountable in love, we are becoming known as those who attack unbelievers. When Christian researchers at the Barna Group asked young adults in America what words best describe Christianity, the #1 response was “anti-homosexual.” And this was true of both non-Christians and church attenders. That blows me away – that if you ask a young adult in America to define Christianity, the definition you will likely get is a negative statement of what we are against, instead of what we are for. We seem to have strayed a long way from our model, Jesus. He wasn’t known as a hater of immoral people. In fact, He was attacked by the religious groups for being a friend of sinners! What happened that we are no longer called that?

Dr. Russell Moore indicates (regarding this one societal issue) – “I think it’s not so much that churches haven’t wanted to talk about it,” he said, “but they haven’t recognized how much the culture has changed around them.” The first step, said Moore, is learning to defend traditional marriage without demonizing homosexuals. “If we can’t empathize with what’s going on in their hearts and minds, we’re not going to be able to love and respect them.”

Dr. Moore’s statement just sheds light on the fact that many Christians do not hold out love to those who do not hold to Christian morality. By taking this stance, we are keeping people from ever coming to Christ and from the possibility of being transformed to have Christian morality.

So yes, we find non-Christians doing whatever they think is right in their own eyes. But instead of us loving them toward Christ. We find that we are doing the same – we have decided to do what is right in our own eyes – judging non-Christians and not reaching out to those without Him in love. At some point, we desperately need to return to letting God be the One that guides us, rather than our culture and our own desires. When we do that, maybe we will find that the words that best describe us are words that tell what we are for – love, unity, compassion – rather than words that tell what we are against.

Why do you think Jesus is known for the love He had (and the things He was for), while we Christians in America today are known for the things we are against? How do we fix this?

— brian rushing

Categories
Relationships

The Tragedy and Hell of Racism

red sign reading "No Admittance" symbolizing the prejudice and racism we often hold
Today I want to give you an extended quote from Ravi Zacharias. In case you are wondering where I stand on the issue, I am in full agreement with Ravi. I believe that not only is the issue of racism tragic in general, but the fact that Christians are still wrestling with the issue of loving others across cultural or ethnic or financial or skin-color lines is absolutely atrocious.

Ravi says it well:
“As we look across this globe today; there are few things that are as deeply troubling and volatile as this issue—the tragedy and the hell of racism. The pain of personal rejection by reason of birth alone is one of the deepest pains a human being can ever experience.

“I do not know how many of you heard the tennis great Arthur Ashe interviewed [after] he had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion…. This greatly admired and mild-mannered gentleman looked into the eyes of the small army of reporters interviewing him & said, ‘As painful as it is to know that I have this dread disease, nothing could be as painful as the rejection I have endured all my life by virtue of my color.”

“Think of the agony encased in those words…. That a man so respected, so talented, so gentlemanly could express that the pain of the disintegration of his body was secondary to the deep, emotional suffering he had endured over a lifetime of personal rejection because of his color—is very sobering (Ravi Z.)”

As a Christian, I am to love my neighbor as myself. The story of the Good Samaritan was a story that attacked prejudice. And yet, too many of us Christians have refused to be obedient to Christ who loved not only those like Him, but also the Samaritan and the Gentile. He reconciled them by the cross. (you can read more about His reconciliation in Ephesians 2:11-22)

I continue to hear people say that prejudice will always exist and that we can’t really do anything about it.
I continue to hear that the issue is too big.
And if that is my belief, then my God is too small.
And if that is your belief, then your God is too small.

And if we are still holding prejudicial attitudes toward others based on skin color and yet call ourselves Christians, we are in sin. Read 1 John for a good discussion of how we who are called Christians are to love all other people (and especially our Christian brothers and sisters).

I know that prejudice does exist and will continue to exist in society, but tragically it still exists in the church – the one group that Jesus prayed would be perfected in unity. It is time for me to be obedient in stamping out any prejudice within me and helping others (especially within my church family) to do the same. To refuse to do so is to refuse to allow Jesus to have complete Lordship in my life.

God, Help Us To Change Our Conversations, Our Hearts, & Our Minds!

— brian rushing

Categories
Relationships

True Love Ain’t Free

free parking 2
There ain’t much in life that is free.
Certainly not love.
True love demands commitment.
True love is an active choice of binding oneself to another.

“They have invented a new phrase that is a black-and-white contradiction in two words—”free love.” As if a lover had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself….”

The quote is from G.K. Chesterton. And I love how he finishes this thought about the binding nature of love. He says that “the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word.”

When we say “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, & in health,” we are making an active, binding statement. We are giving our word that we will be bound up with the other person for a lifetime.

Ravi Zacharias reflects (somewhat deeply) on this idea of binding love:
“Unfortunately in the English language we have cheated ourselves by using the same [word] to cover a wide variety of relationships. In the Greek language there were four different words, each describing a different kind of love:
      ‘Agape’ refers to a pure love with particular reference to God.
      ‘Phileo’ is the love of friendship.
      ‘Storge’ describes the love of a parent.
      ‘Eros’ is romantic love.

“Note carefully that although only one of the loves [eros] is physically consummated, all of them involve commitment. However, in our culture when we say “love” it is most often physical love that is implied, and that devoid of commitment. How strange that we call the sexual act “making love” when in actuality if that act is without commitment…it is a literal and figurative denuding of love in which the individual is degraded to an object.”

“When love is shallow the heart is empty, but if the sacrifice of love is understood, one can drink deeply from its cup and be completely fulfilled.”

I hope that my love for others will always be a love that has commitment backing it up.
How has someone shown you that love is a commitment?

Tozer: The true follower of Christ will not ask, “If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me?”

— brian rushing