KEEP IT SIMPLE - LOVE

“Whoever loves his brother abides in light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling… Little children let us love not in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.”  - I John 2:10, 3:18

I have to admit that for much of my Christian life I’ve struggled with John’s writings. His letters especially just seem to monotonously hold to one theme – love. Okay, love one another. I get it! Or do I?

As a young man, John must have been a real character. Jesus called him and his brother James “sons of thunder”. (Mark 3:17) They wanted to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that failed to receive Christ. (Luke 9:51-55)

John wrote his three letters (First, Second, and Third John) late in life when he was likely in his 70’s or 80’s. What changed him from a “son of thunder” to the apostle of love? I think it was decades of life in Christ- all of church life – the good, the bad and the ugly. Early on, he was in Jerusalem at Pentecost and experienced the powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit, conversion of 100’s, miracles of healing, and even the dead being raised back to life.

As the years passed, he witnessed the enemy’s attacks on the church.
From the outside came persecutions, torture, and martyrdom. From within the church came false doctrine – leaders drawing Christians after themselves with twisted versions of the gospel.

How could the church keep on track? How could tiny gatherings, scattered across the Roman Empire, resist the enemy’s attack? Much of the New Testament was written, but it was not compiled into the Bibles we hold in our hands today. So John in his short letters gave the believers a simple test. How can we tell who is of Christ and who isn’t? Love. Genuine love, the kind that led Jesus to the cross, is the test of a true believer. Don’t be led astray by Charisma. Don’t trust someone’s new and better gospel. Don’t trust those who appeal to the flesh. Trust those who love – not in word, but in deed and in truth. This love kind of comes only from Jesus. Those who love like Jesus loved us are the true followers of Christ.

Keep it simple – thrust love. 

MY LIFE IS NOT MY OWN

“And he died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” – 2 Corinthians 5:5

I decided to retire last December. One morning while reading, praying, and meditating on the Word it came to me: “It is time to retire”. It came not as a command from God, but a gift, something good and desirable. Before this, I could not see myself as a retiree, but now I could. May 1^st seemed like a good date to start for an outdoor guy like me.

People’s first response on hearing that news was typically, “So, what are you going to do?” My stock reply has been that I plan to restore another antique car and do more gardening, hiking, fishing, and reading. I look forward to spending more time with my wife, Barb, and slowing down a bit. In addition, to volunteer pastoral work, I would like to do some inner city ministry.

A keen awareness has come, however, that my life is not my own, it belongs to God. There is nothing evil or sinful on my wish list. The issue is that it is my wish list for how I want to spend my retirement. I am not free to live my life as I choose. As Paul told the Corinthians, “…he (Jesus) died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him”.

What does this mean for me? Jesus has full and complete claim on my life. He has a specific plan for this season of my life that trumps my plans. Exactly what all His plan entails is not yet clear to me, but step by step, as I seek Him and am obedient, He will make his purpose clear. I am still thinking about finding an old VW beetle to restore, but as I hike and garden, my prayer is “Lord lead me. Show me how to lay down my life for You as You laid down Your life for me. “

And your life?

GOD MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE

“Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.’? ‘So they are no longer two but one flesh.’ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” Matthew 19: 4-6

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s were tumultuous times: the Vietnam War, anti-war demonstrations, and racial strife. I am part of that generation. No, I never grew my hair long and took on the hippie look. I did not burn my draft card. However, I was a Jesus Freak. A group of us met regularly in the student union of Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, to pray and study the Bible. We were labeled Jesus Freaks because we were always talking about Jesus. We chose not to rebel against the establishment and not to be part of the sexual revolution.

The sexual revolution has progressed, in the ensuing years, beyond the “Free Love” advocated by the hippy crowd to the point where sexual relationships of all kinds and descriptions are not only accepted, but are being promoted as “normal and desirable”. Gender has been redefined, becoming more of a personal preference then a biological reality established at birth. At the risk of being again labeled a “Jesus Freak”, I have to take a stand.

My stand on sexuality is radical and narrowly defined. Sexual relations are to be confined to a man and a woman who are married. Period. The only other option is celibate singleness. Sex before marriage, adultery, homosexuality, and all other sexual relations outside the marriage of a man and a woman are wrong. They are destructive. They are a sin against ourselves, our partner(s), and God. No, I am not homophobic. I do not hate transgender people and I am not a prude. Sex has been a wonderful and fulfilling part of my marriage for over four decades.

I firmly believe God’s ways are the simplest and the best. We were created male and female by God, created for the lifetime union of a man and a woman. Any other sexual relationship is less than God’s best for us.

LISTEN TO HIM

“This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

Polarization in politics today in the United States is to a degree maintained and even intensified by the media. Left leaning Americans listen to liberal media outlets and right leaning Americans listen to conservative outlets. People hear what they want to hear and their views are reinforced.

Who do you listen to? Who shapes your view of reality? No, I am not talking about your political views, but your spiritual. The battle for the hearts and minds of people in the spiritual arena is even more intense than the battle in the political arena. And more is at stake than the economy, health care, and even world peace. The battle raging in the spiritual realm is for our very souls.

On one side we have the deceiver. His message is one that exalts the self, that appeals to our passions, and that distorts the truth. He comes as an angel of light with arguments that sound so plausible, even religious. His message promises the world, but in the end only delivers death.

On the other side we have the One, Christ Jesus who is the truth. His message is one of humility and of dying to oneself. It is one of grace and forgiveness, peace and wholeness. It always delivers life.

Chapter 17 of the book of Matthew recounts the transfiguration. Peter, James, and John went with Jesus to a mountain top and there they saw Jesus in a glorified state talking with Moses and Elijah. If His miracles hadn’t convinced these disciples that Jesus was the Son of God, surely they were convinced now. The Father then spoke from heaven confirming that Jesus was indeed His beloved Son. And the Father’s message to Peter, James, and John, as well as to us, was very simple. Tune out all the other voices, quiet yourself, and “Listen to Him”. 

LIVING LIFE TOGETHER

“Though you have not seen him, you love him…” I  Peter 1:8a

Peter loved Jesus. He talked with Him. He ate with Him. He traveled with Him. He lived life together with Jesus for three years. Jesus did Peter a great kindness when He healed Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus did an even greater kindness when He appeared to him after his resurrection. Though Peter denied three times that he even knew Him, Jesus received him back as His disciple.

As Peter writes to second generation Christians in I Peter, who had not seen Jesus before or after his resurrection, He commends them for loving Him. But is it possible to love someone we have never seen?

At age fifteen, I fell in love with a pretty teenage girl, but that was more infatuation than love. My puppy love grew and matured into genuine love after we married. Love grew as we shared the joys and sorrows and the trials and triumphs that the years have brought us. Genuine love came as we lived life together.

Though we have not seen Jesus, we can love Him. He promised to always be with us. He gave us His Spirit. We don’t need to see Him to love Him. We need only to invite Him into all of our lives and live together with Him.

LIVING HOPE

I Peter 1:3 – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Peter is writing about thirty years after the death of Jesus Christ to believers who were scattered across the Roman Empire. They were, like we often ae, confused and discouraged. They had expected Christ to return quickly, but now decades later, the reality had begun to sink in that God’s soon is not our soon.

After his short greeting in verses one and two, Peter gets right to the heart of the message in verse three. He tells believers then and now that God is good because, in His great mercy He has given us new birth. The hopeless condition of our old lives is behind us. Even as we continue to live in this fallen world, we now have a glorious living hope that is solidly based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a living hope because he conquered death, hell and sin. He came back to life with a glorious, but very real and tangible body. Many, including Peter, saw the resurrected Christ Jesus. They walked with Him, talked with Him, and even ate with Him after His resurrection.

This gives us hope because, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 15:20, He is the first fruits from the dead. My fate is the same as His. All the troubles and trials of this life, even death itself, shall not have the last word. I have a living hope. I too shall be resurrected with a body like His, forever to be with Him.

BECAUSE THERE IS A HEAVEN

And I saw a new heaven… And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God… “Behold the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be among them.  (Revelation 21:1a, 2a, 3b)

Revelation chapters 21 and 22 are the most descriptive passage about heaven in the Bible.  It is plain in the verses above and the rest of these two chapters that we will not spend eternity sitting on clouds playing harps, but living in the heavenly new Jerusalem.  Notice how much emphasis is placed upon the fact that God will dwell with His people in this beautiful city.  It will be heavenly because God will be there, and He will outshine all else.  It will be a place of joy, purity, peace, and life, simply because God is all this and so much more.  Heaven is not a place where everything pleases us, but a place where everything pleases God… and consequently pleases us if we are His children.

And because there is a heaven, there must be a hell.  There must be a place for everything that does not belong in heaven.  God is who and what He is.  He cannot and will not change to accommodate mankind’s selfish, hard-hearted, and sinful ways.  He paid a great price in the death of His Son on the cross to provide for our forgiveness.  When we accept that forgiveness, we become children of God by new birth.  Something God-like is born in us, and as it grows and matures, we become more and more like Him.  When we die what remains of our sinful, rebellious old self will fall away, and as children of God we will joyfully take our eternal place with God.  If we fail to accept God’s offer, rejecting His forgiveness and the new life that can be ours in Christ, we will be stuck with who and what we are.  Just consider this for a minute – do you really want to live for eternity stuck with yourself as you are, separated from God and His city of life and light?  Think of the regret, the despair, and the endless replaying of the bitter memories of this life.                                                                          
The longer I live, the more I long to be with God.  We were made to love and be loved by God.  We were made to be with Him.  Why settle for anything less, now and throughout eternity?