Wednesday, August 31, 2016
The Love of God
By Rebekah Royal
My precious grandson’s spent the night tonight. God has used these little boys to teach me more about the love of God than just about anything I’ve experienced in my life. Being the survivor of abuse, one of the repercussions of my experiences, left me having trouble giving or receiving love for many years. As I began to heal and learn who I am in Christ, God has removed the veil from my eyes regarding love. As a young mother of two, in a difficult marriage, my heart ached for years. God redeemed my heart, my marriage and my life and this year my husband and I will celebrate 35 years of marriage. I’d love to share with you what God taught me just last night.
As I said, our grandson’s (ages 4 & 6) spent the night last night. It was a stormy night in Georgia. Tornado warnings were announced and the lightning and thunder were present. Many times we allow the boys to bring their mattress down to the living room to “camp out.” This was a great night to do that since Nana wanted to make sure these boys were safe in this storm. We watched a couple of their shows on television as we laid on the mattress together. I had to split my time between the two with my “place” on the mattress. I cannot even express to you the joy that I feel from these two. As we turned off the television and the lights and I went to my room, which was very close to the living room; I left my door open so I could hear the least little sound. I cannot even imagine not being right there if they awakened with any need. When I thought I heard a sound I leaped out of the bed and pressed my ear in their direction. False alarm. They were sleeping soundly.
This morning Father God is bringing so many thoughts and scriptures to my mind. Luke 11:11-13 NLT, “You fathers – if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Of if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children (And boy do I know how to do this since gifts is my love language), how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” Luke 13:34, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.”
If I am quick to my feet when I hear the least little sound of these boys, how much quicker is God to rush to our need when we call out? Do we believe this? Haven’t we all had experiences where we cried out to God and felt nothing? As a counselor, I often hear the complaints of my counselee’s who are confused, bewildered and even angry because they “feel” as though God has abandoned them. If you are there, it’s okay. But work through those negative emotions or we will continually push away his wings of shelter. We don’t have to STAY in our anger. Will we believe God’s word, or will we believe our feelings? If my heart can be stirred in the direction of my grandson’s slightest need, how much more, can a God who IS LOVE not turn a deaf ear to our cry? Friends, HE IS THERE! HE is in you! HE cares! HE feels what you feel! If HE is silent there is a reason! Will we believe truth no matter what our feelings are screaming? I can easily hear Bill Gillham’s voice in my head, “Rain on those feelings!” Those are some of the most profound words we can remember. IF HE is in you, that means HE feels what you are feeling. HE weeps with you. HE holds you in your confusion. HE never leaves you nor forsakes you. Know that HE is holding on to you until the fog of confusion leaves you. HE is giving you the faith you need to get through those painful and difficult days. HE LOVES YOU!
Oh, and guess what, grandson number three will be here in July! I never knew I was capable of such love. But then again, why am I surprised? God IS love and HE resides in me! And HE resides in you!
I have to go now. I’m hearing a sweet, sweet voice calling, “Nana, I’m awake!”
Drawing Strength From The Vine
By Anabel Gillham
…we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
II Corinthians 3:18
It was one of my favorite nature study science lessons, and I always had as much fun as my fifth grade kids did watching what happened. It was, of necessity, a springtime experiment because that was when the daffodils appeared to announce with golden voices that winter was pretty well over and spring was on its way.
Several of the kids would bring daffodils from their yard (I think Glenn usually ‘found’ one in the neighbor’s yard, but I never scolded him or embarrassed him. He had a rough time at the house he called ‘home’). We would all get out our Gerber baby food jars, fill them about 2/3 full of water and then add some cake coloring to that water, using several different colors in the jars to see which one we would like the best. Then we would place a flower in each jar and watch enthralled as it thirstily ‘drank’ the colored water and the elaborate map of its tiny veins began to be evident as it took the color from the jar.
That’s a wonderful object lesson in teaching about Jesus being the vine and how we branches draw our strength from Him and actually begin to look like Him-like one of His children. And we begin to act like Him, as we allow Him to be our strength, our life, our beautiful color-as He flows through the myriad tiny veins.
The Greeks came to Philip and said, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” I think there are multitudes of hurting, curious people saying the same thing today. They watch us and how we operate in our world with our circumstances and they are watching to see if Jesus appears. Too often we act just like they do and they see nothing in our life that would make them feel the necessity to have Jesus to be a part of their world. They don’t relate.
But if we have our “feet in the water” and are “drinking thirstily” they are going to see myriad things that will tell them, “Their strength doesn’t come from themselves. Look, what’s happening! They ‘look like’ Jesus!”
…we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
II Corinthians 3:18
It was one of my favorite nature study science lessons, and I always had as much fun as my fifth grade kids did watching what happened. It was, of necessity, a springtime experiment because that was when the daffodils appeared to announce with golden voices that winter was pretty well over and spring was on its way.
Several of the kids would bring daffodils from their yard (I think Glenn usually ‘found’ one in the neighbor’s yard, but I never scolded him or embarrassed him. He had a rough time at the house he called ‘home’). We would all get out our Gerber baby food jars, fill them about 2/3 full of water and then add some cake coloring to that water, using several different colors in the jars to see which one we would like the best. Then we would place a flower in each jar and watch enthralled as it thirstily ‘drank’ the colored water and the elaborate map of its tiny veins began to be evident as it took the color from the jar.
That’s a wonderful object lesson in teaching about Jesus being the vine and how we branches draw our strength from Him and actually begin to look like Him-like one of His children. And we begin to act like Him, as we allow Him to be our strength, our life, our beautiful color-as He flows through the myriad tiny veins.
The Greeks came to Philip and said, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” I think there are multitudes of hurting, curious people saying the same thing today. They watch us and how we operate in our world with our circumstances and they are watching to see if Jesus appears. Too often we act just like they do and they see nothing in our life that would make them feel the necessity to have Jesus to be a part of their world. They don’t relate.
But if we have our “feet in the water” and are “drinking thirstily” they are going to see myriad things that will tell them, “Their strength doesn’t come from themselves. Look, what’s happening! They ‘look like’ Jesus!”
How Much Are You Worth?
We know what something is worth to someone by what they are willing to pay for it. Consider, then, what our heavenly bridegroom was willing to pay to redeem us and make us his bride. Out of his love for us, the all-holy God was willing to do nothing less than to go to the extremity of becoming our sin (2 Cor 5:21) and becoming our God-forsaken curse (Gal 3:13). This means that God’s love for us led him to go to the extreme of somehow becoming his own antithesis. In other words, God revealed how much we are worth to him by somehow becoming anti-God!
God could not have gone further than he in fact did to free us from our bondage and make us his bride. And if the worth of something or someone to another is determined by what they are willing to pay to acquire it, then the fact that God was willing to pay the greatest price that could possible be paid can only mean that we have the greatest possible worth to God.
The unsurpassable price God paid for us means that we have unsurpassable worth to God. God could not possibly love us more than he actually does, and we could not matter more to God than we actually do.
This love lies at the core of God’s being. “God is love” (1 John 4:8), as we explored in this post. God loves us with the very same love that God eternally is. Calvary is what the love of the Trinity looks like when it encompasses us. Jesus reflects this truth when he prays that we would know that the Father loves us with the very same love he has for his own eternal Son (John 17:26).
In other words, God loves us with the same love he has for himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. When we receive this love, we are incorporated into Christ and therefore into the eternal triune community so that we receive and reflect the very same perfect love that unites God throughout eternity.
The God whose love led him to go to the infinite extreme of offering up his Son to become our sin and our God-forsakenness also gives us, as a result of this unsurpassable sacrifice, “all things” (Rom 8:22). It’s no wonder that Paul declared that God’s love for us in Christ “surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:18-19).
All of this is part of the magnificent revelation and promise of the cross. On the cross God reveals his perfect love for us and reveals our unsurpassable worth to him. And on the cross God promises to always love us like this and to always ascribe this worth to us.
Even more, the fact that God’s love for us is demonstrated “while we were still sinners” (Rom 5:8) makes it clear that God’s love for us is completely based on God’s character, not ours. Even when we are in bondage to sin and are thinking, feeling, and/or acting like God’s enemies, we can trust that it remains as true as ever that we could not be loved more than we actually are, and could not matter more to God than we actually do. God’s perfect, unsurpassable, unwavering love for us is also unconditional.
—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 240-242 - Greg Boyd
God could not have gone further than he in fact did to free us from our bondage and make us his bride. And if the worth of something or someone to another is determined by what they are willing to pay to acquire it, then the fact that God was willing to pay the greatest price that could possible be paid can only mean that we have the greatest possible worth to God.
The unsurpassable price God paid for us means that we have unsurpassable worth to God. God could not possibly love us more than he actually does, and we could not matter more to God than we actually do.
This love lies at the core of God’s being. “God is love” (1 John 4:8), as we explored in this post. God loves us with the very same love that God eternally is. Calvary is what the love of the Trinity looks like when it encompasses us. Jesus reflects this truth when he prays that we would know that the Father loves us with the very same love he has for his own eternal Son (John 17:26).
In other words, God loves us with the same love he has for himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. When we receive this love, we are incorporated into Christ and therefore into the eternal triune community so that we receive and reflect the very same perfect love that unites God throughout eternity.
The God whose love led him to go to the infinite extreme of offering up his Son to become our sin and our God-forsakenness also gives us, as a result of this unsurpassable sacrifice, “all things” (Rom 8:22). It’s no wonder that Paul declared that God’s love for us in Christ “surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:18-19).
All of this is part of the magnificent revelation and promise of the cross. On the cross God reveals his perfect love for us and reveals our unsurpassable worth to him. And on the cross God promises to always love us like this and to always ascribe this worth to us.
Even more, the fact that God’s love for us is demonstrated “while we were still sinners” (Rom 5:8) makes it clear that God’s love for us is completely based on God’s character, not ours. Even when we are in bondage to sin and are thinking, feeling, and/or acting like God’s enemies, we can trust that it remains as true as ever that we could not be loved more than we actually are, and could not matter more to God than we actually do. God’s perfect, unsurpassable, unwavering love for us is also unconditional.
—Adapted from Benefit of the Doubt, pages 240-242 - Greg Boyd
A Brief Theology of God’s Love
The most profound truth of the Bible is that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). This is the most fundamental thing to be said about God, for it encompasses everything else that can be said about God. Peter Kreft explains this passage it this way:
Love is God’s essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express God’s essence in this way. Scripture says God is just and merciful, but it does not say that God is justice itself or mercy itself. It does say that God is love, not just a lover. Love is God’s very essence. Everything else is a manifestation of this essence to us, a relationship between this essence and us. This is the absolute; everything else is relative to it.
As Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God eternally exists as perfect love. Each divine person within the godhead ascribes ultimate worth to the others. In doing this God is not being conceited but simply accurate. For as the one eternal uncreated reality, the triune community is the ultimate value, if you will, from which all created things derive value.
While we cannot clearly conceive of what the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit looked like prior to creation, we can discern its basic nature from the way God reveals himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ. In Christ, and throughout the New Testament, we learn that the fellowship of the three divine persons consists in mutual submission.
The triune fellowship is Christ-like. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ascribe ultimate worth to one another without any competition. Their eternal life together consists in the divine joy of expressing the absolute value each has for the other.
The essence of this triune love is revealed in God’s love for humanity. The eternal, other-oriented love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is revealed outside of God, as it were, in his love for humanity. God’s own inherent worth is expressed in the worth he ascribes to humanity, and it is truly breathtaking.
God expresses unsurpassable love for us and ascribes unsurpassable worth to us by sacrificing the One who has unsurpassable value on our behalf! And this unfathomable expression of love to us displayed the perfect love that the three divine persons have for one another.
God is toward us as he eternally is within himself: God is love.
—Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 25-26 - Greg Boyd
When Our Prayer Life Changes…
This process of inner transformation is fascinating to watch, in my own life and others. It’s disorienting for many when their age-old religious practices start to shift. I know it was for me. One day you’re doing a regimen of Bible reading and prayer, feeling good about yourself for ticking all the boxes. Then, they seem lifeless, or at least ineffective. Part of you says keep doing it no matter what, another part invites you down a journey away from religious obligation to discover what a real engagement with the Scriptures or God might be. I enjoy stories of those who take the road less traveled, and risk moving away from the lifeless status quo to discover a real relationship with God.
Transformation comes slowly. We may even been a bit naughty at the beginning since we’re not doing the things we’re “supposed to do.” But what many of us have found on the other side is that prayer and Bible reading become so much more real inside a growing relationship, rather than as a rote exercise out of obligation.
I got this from someone today in that very process:
I’ve been contemplating something this morning…. I have a hard time with journaling now for a few days. I was an avid journaler as that’s where I communicated with God. I have a hard time “speaking prayers”… I can say “help me God” but most of the time all that’s there are the thoughts within. I don’t speak out much in the “dear God” prayers. I’m not overwhelmed with guilt because I think of the Spirit groaning and Jesus interceding and since Jesus lives in me I believe that my thoughts and aches are translated in intercession to the father. I’m not worried that I don’t have words because I know how I feel with my own children. Sometimes my son will come out of his room and just sit in the living room, yes, often on his phone… 🙂 But he’s in the living room with me. I don’t care that he’s not talking. I’m just happy he’s in the room with me. If he wants to say something he can, if he doesn’t it’s ok. He’s with me.
I know that there’s been such a huge distortion in regards to prayer for me as I often just don’t want to “talk” to God. For one, it was displayed as an act of allegiance to stay in right standing with God. For two, so many of my prayers were about me getting what I thought was best for me. An example: my broken-down car. The way I would approach it was to start to pray… and gather as many people as I could to pray. We would all ask God together to cause the car to be an inexpensive fix. That was the best thing for me, right. I would pray constantly asking God to make it an inexpensive fix. When the call came telling me it was a transmission there would be a deflation…. Why didn’t God give me “the best thing” and inexpensive repair. What about “whatever you ask for in His name will be given to you”? I had used Jesus’ name and asked over and over again, believing. What happened there? As a parent I would do that for my child, why wouldn’t he do that for me? What kind of love is that?
Somehow I believe I have equated prayers answered the way I wanted with love, attentiveness, and care. I got to the point that I stopped asking for things because what was the point, I rarely get what I pray for anyways. Answered prayer became some type of symbol of his love. When it wasn’t answered the way I had prayed the indications were that something was really wrong, with God’s care for me of maybe with my value to Him. I think somehow this distortion has hidden His love. I think of the scripture that talks about “if a child asks for bread would he be given a stone.” I often felt like I was being given the stone when God wouldn’t give me what I “so desperately needed”.. (of course I was determining what I needed)
So much has been distorted in the 50 + years of religious teaching that I sat under. So nowadays I don’t say much in the ways I once did with words of “dear God”… I don’t ask for much. I don’t journal much.
This is an incredibly healthy process. For me, when I realized that most of my prayers came from anxiety and that led me to always ask God to do what I thought best, my prayer life took a dive as well. No he doesn’t bless me from my agenda, he saves me from it. He’s not the fairy Godfather turning our pumpkins into chariots. He’s with us in the reality of negotiating a broken world and all the while inviting us to know him better. As love began to win me, my prayer life too a real shift. First it seemed to die, then something more real and rewarding began to emerge.
His love built greater trust in me and I learned the power of prayer that rises from growing trust. They weren’t “fix this” or “fix that” prayers; they were honest pleas for him to help me see what he was doing in the circumstances I was in and how I could be a part of that. So instead of turning my anxiety into prayer requests, I just began to pour out my anxieties to him, knowing that love needed to win me into safer space. “God, why am I so anxious about this?” “Father, what do you want to show me of yourself.” “How do I keep my attitude free with the frustration of a broken car, or because someone else forgot an appointment, and how might you redeem this situation for your glory?”
I began to look toward him in everything and now pray more confidently for those things that God seems to nudge me towards. Transformation is a great process. Isn’t it fun to discover new things, to see movement in our journeys, to lose the religious habits of the past and find a real way to relate to him?
I love all that stuff and I love that it is happening in this woman as well.
What an amazing season when you risk the illusionary safety of the status quo and begin to let Jesus show you just how real this journey was meant to be.
Transformation comes slowly. We may even been a bit naughty at the beginning since we’re not doing the things we’re “supposed to do.” But what many of us have found on the other side is that prayer and Bible reading become so much more real inside a growing relationship, rather than as a rote exercise out of obligation.
I got this from someone today in that very process:
I’ve been contemplating something this morning…. I have a hard time with journaling now for a few days. I was an avid journaler as that’s where I communicated with God. I have a hard time “speaking prayers”… I can say “help me God” but most of the time all that’s there are the thoughts within. I don’t speak out much in the “dear God” prayers. I’m not overwhelmed with guilt because I think of the Spirit groaning and Jesus interceding and since Jesus lives in me I believe that my thoughts and aches are translated in intercession to the father. I’m not worried that I don’t have words because I know how I feel with my own children. Sometimes my son will come out of his room and just sit in the living room, yes, often on his phone… 🙂 But he’s in the living room with me. I don’t care that he’s not talking. I’m just happy he’s in the room with me. If he wants to say something he can, if he doesn’t it’s ok. He’s with me.
I know that there’s been such a huge distortion in regards to prayer for me as I often just don’t want to “talk” to God. For one, it was displayed as an act of allegiance to stay in right standing with God. For two, so many of my prayers were about me getting what I thought was best for me. An example: my broken-down car. The way I would approach it was to start to pray… and gather as many people as I could to pray. We would all ask God together to cause the car to be an inexpensive fix. That was the best thing for me, right. I would pray constantly asking God to make it an inexpensive fix. When the call came telling me it was a transmission there would be a deflation…. Why didn’t God give me “the best thing” and inexpensive repair. What about “whatever you ask for in His name will be given to you”? I had used Jesus’ name and asked over and over again, believing. What happened there? As a parent I would do that for my child, why wouldn’t he do that for me? What kind of love is that?
Somehow I believe I have equated prayers answered the way I wanted with love, attentiveness, and care. I got to the point that I stopped asking for things because what was the point, I rarely get what I pray for anyways. Answered prayer became some type of symbol of his love. When it wasn’t answered the way I had prayed the indications were that something was really wrong, with God’s care for me of maybe with my value to Him. I think somehow this distortion has hidden His love. I think of the scripture that talks about “if a child asks for bread would he be given a stone.” I often felt like I was being given the stone when God wouldn’t give me what I “so desperately needed”.. (of course I was determining what I needed)
So much has been distorted in the 50 + years of religious teaching that I sat under. So nowadays I don’t say much in the ways I once did with words of “dear God”… I don’t ask for much. I don’t journal much.
This is an incredibly healthy process. For me, when I realized that most of my prayers came from anxiety and that led me to always ask God to do what I thought best, my prayer life took a dive as well. No he doesn’t bless me from my agenda, he saves me from it. He’s not the fairy Godfather turning our pumpkins into chariots. He’s with us in the reality of negotiating a broken world and all the while inviting us to know him better. As love began to win me, my prayer life too a real shift. First it seemed to die, then something more real and rewarding began to emerge.
His love built greater trust in me and I learned the power of prayer that rises from growing trust. They weren’t “fix this” or “fix that” prayers; they were honest pleas for him to help me see what he was doing in the circumstances I was in and how I could be a part of that. So instead of turning my anxiety into prayer requests, I just began to pour out my anxieties to him, knowing that love needed to win me into safer space. “God, why am I so anxious about this?” “Father, what do you want to show me of yourself.” “How do I keep my attitude free with the frustration of a broken car, or because someone else forgot an appointment, and how might you redeem this situation for your glory?”
I began to look toward him in everything and now pray more confidently for those things that God seems to nudge me towards. Transformation is a great process. Isn’t it fun to discover new things, to see movement in our journeys, to lose the religious habits of the past and find a real way to relate to him?
I love all that stuff and I love that it is happening in this woman as well.
What an amazing season when you risk the illusionary safety of the status quo and begin to let Jesus show you just how real this journey was meant to be.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Love That Keeps On Giving
In English, we have one word for love. In ancient Greek, there were four different words that we can translate as “love.” And each has a different meaning. Let’s consider each briefly.
Storge—referred to a person’s affection for something. When we say we love our car or a person’s smile or another’s ability to sing, we are using love in this sense.
Eros—usually used in reference to romantic or sexual love. This is what people mean today when they speak about “falling in love” or “making love.”
Phileo—most commonly used in reference to friendship. When we tell a best friend we love him or her, we don’t mean it romantically (eros), nor do we mean only that we have affection for something about that person (storge).
Each of these senses of love involves an emotional feeling we have toward another person or thing. For this reason these first three kinds of love are neither universal nor unconditional. We cannot have affection for everyone and everything (storge); we cannot have romantic feelings toward everyone (eros); and we cannot experience personal friendship with everyone (phileo).
Agape—this fourth kind of love is universal and unconditional. This love is not a feeling one has, although certain feelings often follow from it. It is rather a commitment one makes, a stance one takes toward another, and an activity one does. It should be present in each of the first three senses of love but also when those forms of love are absent. Agape is a kind of love you can have when there’s nothing about the other you like, when you have no romantic interest in the other, and even when the other is your enemy rather than your friend.
Agape is the most fundamentally the kind of love God had for us while we were yet sinners and the kind of love we are commanded to have toward all others.
The Bible does not give us an abstract definition of agape love. It rather points us to its perfect expression in the person of Jesus Christ, dying for us on the cross. “We know love by this, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 Jn 3:16). In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we read “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). This is what agape love looks like. As Bonhoeffer put it, “love … is the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Jesus Christ.”
Love, as defined by the one who is love, lays down its life for another, however undeserving. Agape love ascribes worth to another at cost to oneself. On the cross, God expressed this love in its most perfect form.
The kind of love that defines God, that characterizes the life of Christ, and that is commanded of believers has nothing to do with getting something. The agape love that flows from the Spirit of God is rather about giving something. It is constituted by a unilateral movement toward another. God does not love because he needs something from us. He is not trying to get his own needs met by relating to us. Rather, God loves out of the abundance of his life and in the interests of the beloved.
What is it that agape love gives? In a word, it is worth. God does not love because of the worth that he finds in another, as is typical of most expressions of love. If that were true, God could not love us with a perfect love, for we are unworthy sinners. Rather, God loves in order to ascribe worth to another.
—Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 24-25 and Seeing Is Believing, pages 145-146
Storge—referred to a person’s affection for something. When we say we love our car or a person’s smile or another’s ability to sing, we are using love in this sense.
Eros—usually used in reference to romantic or sexual love. This is what people mean today when they speak about “falling in love” or “making love.”
Phileo—most commonly used in reference to friendship. When we tell a best friend we love him or her, we don’t mean it romantically (eros), nor do we mean only that we have affection for something about that person (storge).
Each of these senses of love involves an emotional feeling we have toward another person or thing. For this reason these first three kinds of love are neither universal nor unconditional. We cannot have affection for everyone and everything (storge); we cannot have romantic feelings toward everyone (eros); and we cannot experience personal friendship with everyone (phileo).
Agape—this fourth kind of love is universal and unconditional. This love is not a feeling one has, although certain feelings often follow from it. It is rather a commitment one makes, a stance one takes toward another, and an activity one does. It should be present in each of the first three senses of love but also when those forms of love are absent. Agape is a kind of love you can have when there’s nothing about the other you like, when you have no romantic interest in the other, and even when the other is your enemy rather than your friend.
Agape is the most fundamentally the kind of love God had for us while we were yet sinners and the kind of love we are commanded to have toward all others.
The Bible does not give us an abstract definition of agape love. It rather points us to its perfect expression in the person of Jesus Christ, dying for us on the cross. “We know love by this, that [Jesus] laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 Jn 3:16). In Paul’s letter to the Romans, we read “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). This is what agape love looks like. As Bonhoeffer put it, “love … is the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Jesus Christ.”
Love, as defined by the one who is love, lays down its life for another, however undeserving. Agape love ascribes worth to another at cost to oneself. On the cross, God expressed this love in its most perfect form.
The kind of love that defines God, that characterizes the life of Christ, and that is commanded of believers has nothing to do with getting something. The agape love that flows from the Spirit of God is rather about giving something. It is constituted by a unilateral movement toward another. God does not love because he needs something from us. He is not trying to get his own needs met by relating to us. Rather, God loves out of the abundance of his life and in the interests of the beloved.
What is it that agape love gives? In a word, it is worth. God does not love because of the worth that he finds in another, as is typical of most expressions of love. If that were true, God could not love us with a perfect love, for we are unworthy sinners. Rather, God loves in order to ascribe worth to another.
—Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 24-25 and Seeing Is Believing, pages 145-146
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Buried Alive
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. --Philippians 2:5-8
Man needed redemption not only from sin but also from himself. In order to accomplish that, God had to become a man, be victorious over all that vexes mankind, return to heaven, and from there dispense His victorious life to all who would ask. We have to wonder what it was like for Him who created the entire universe to wake up in the morning and discover Himself in the body of a baby. Imagine waking up and finding yourself in a coffin six feet under the ground. Would you panic, beat the sides of the coffin, yell, scream, and plead for deliverance? The body in which He found Himself was indeed a coffin, for in it He would die, but when God yielded Himself to living as a man, He humbled Himself.
Isn’t it interesting that when the Man with an immeasurable IQ tells us something so very simple and uncomplicated that will dramatically “improve” life for us here on earth, we read it as if it were the day’s severe weather prognostication and go about our business unmoved…umbrella left at home.
1. have this attitude…
2. empty yourself (humility)…I have nothing.
3. ask for His victorious life to be dispensed to us today
4. enjoy His life abundantly all day long
Doesn’t seem too difficult, does it? Can we believe it will happen?
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