Love – Page 2 – LOVE | ACCEPT

Of Pastors, Private Jets and Being a Watchman

I flew in to our prayer meeting this morning on my private jet. A car service whisked me from the airport to the doors of the sanctuary at 5:55, just in time to hear the first notes of the hymns that were raised by the choir before setting the day’s prayer concerns before the congregation. Two hours later I rose from my kneeling position, noting that I was the first to leave of the hundreds of souls gathered, convicting me all over again of my accountability for the spiritual welfare of those God has brought me to shepherd.

Okay, that wasn’t my reality, but it might have been some pastor’s morning!

The truth is I drove my 12 year old creaky pickup truck to the church, arriving at 5:30 to turn on the lights, open the doors and start the computer and projector to display the concerns of the church for the gathered. I don’t do this for my glory or to be noted as a servant. I do it out of love for my God and my church. (We, your pastor included, don’t do this for our glory or to be noticed. We do it out of love for God and Church.) We do what we do out of love for you.

The book of Ezekiel can be a tough read, but it can be a convicting read as well. Turn to chapter 33 and read it with your pastor in mind. He is called to be the Watchman, accountable to God for your spiritual welfare. God has called him or her to warn you of the roaming lion or the sweeping sword.

But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood. (vv 33:6)

Few pastors who take passages like this seriously would do what they do, giving sacrificially of their lives for you in return for 30 pieces of lucre. One need only turn the page to the next chapter to see a warning against taking on the role of spiritual shepherd strictly for material gain or personal status. As the prophet records:

This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? (vv 34:2b)

Pastoring with love and humility, I wish you grace and peace.

Psalm 107–Do Tell

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story – those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from north and south. (Ps 107:2-3)

The culture that we have developed within the Church puts an emphasis on the shiny, clean you. Reborn, redeemed? Give effusive thanks for that, Christian!

Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. (vv8-9)

The psalmist reminds us, however, of the value of recounting the journey prior to redemption. Others benefit directly and indirectly from the journey, from seeing the hills and valleys overcome. They gain a deeper perspective on redemption when they see sin beaten, sin removed, sin forgiven and washed clean. The psalmist tells of the wandering, the failure, the enslavement, the loss and greed—all forgotten by Yahweh in an instant when His people focused their devotion on Him.

Let the one who is wise heed these things and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord. (v43)

Grace and peace to you.

image Lewis & Clark College

Learning to Kneel-One

Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;*

If you have ever paddled the quiet waters of a remote lake, gently placing the blades into the water so as not to churn the stillness around you…

If you have ever chanced upon the grandeur of a mountain vista or a verdant valley or the deep crimson of a desert sunset and found yourself quietly absorbing the beauty…

If you have ever held a newborn, warm and taking his first few breaths, and had no words to utter…

… you are familiar with the feelings that overtake you as you truly enter the presence of the Living God.

Many a sanctuary this coming Sunday will be filled, not with awful, prayerful silence overwhelmed by the presence of God, but the noise of a hundred casual conversations that grow slowly louder as more of the brethren enter the room. Bibles will remain closed, guitars will be tuned, and children will play.

As if God will appear at the appointed hour, like the train from Bakersfield, and all we need to do is to be there to meet Him.

Reverence is the first lesson in learning to kneel. This requires a change of attitude and a soul attuned to the Omnipresent God rather than the culturally popular Compartmentalized God. My next post will begin here, unpacking the twin threads of omnipresence and reverence and noting how a heightened awareness of both can radically change our times of worship. This coming Sunday however, enter your sanctuary or meeting room and try sitting quietly, making yourself aware of His enveloping presence. Pray for the service. Pray for the visiting family sitting behind you. Pray a Psalm. See if others follow your lead as the moments tick by toward the first notes of a song. See if your preparation hasn’t brought minutely closer to the throne.

Grace and peace to you.

*Psalm 95:6

image Joshua Conley

Psalm 106 – How Quickly

But they soon forgot what he had done and did not wait for his plan to unfold.

In the desert they gave in to their craving; in the wilderness they put God to the test. (Ps 106:13-14)

To read the Old Testament is to thumb through a catalog of mankind’s many failures. As much a diary as it is a mirror, the pages are rife with grotesque and subtle reminders of our own tendencies. In the two psalms that conclude Book IV of the psalter, the psalmists rehearse Israel’s repeated incidents of glorifying and celebrating God for his mighty deeds, followed by a meteoric descent into the waters of the Lethe.

Psalms 105 and 106 must be read together to gain the full impact of the psalmist’s purpose. Where 105 catalogs God’s unending faithfulness to the people who are called by His name, 106 reminds hearers of the incessant unfaithfulness. The juxtaposition of the two is jarring, and we cannot help but marvel at His Love and Israel’s failure.

And the myriad failures in our own lives.

Many times he delivered them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their sin. (v43)

The Christian has little excuse for continued purposeful rebellion. The Spirit serves in His role as paraclete in countless ways, one being the early warning when our tendency toward corruption threatens to affect our behavior. We can avoid repeating the history of our family line by becoming more aware and responsive to His whispers, warning us off of unglorifying speech, thoughts and behaviors.

Save us, Lord our God, and gather us from the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. (v47)

Save us, Lord our God, from ourselves and our bent toward failing you. Let us give thanks and praise for your redemption and your power to live out the new creation you’ve begun in us.

Grace and peace to you.

image DaveKav

Psalm 105–Don’t Know Much About History

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.

Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all his wonderful acts. (Psalm 105:1-2)

The awe of the sovereign God of the universe is sufficient inspiration to invite the totality of our worship. He is the God of all creation, the giver of life and the sustainer of souls. Worship-worth/ship-should be the natural relationship between created and Creator.

Then the mind gets in the way…

The brain tells the heart to justify the worship. Give me a reason, it says. The psalmist knows this tendency well. To call Israel to worship he rehearses the glory of Yahweh’s interactions with His people.. Glory in his holy name…Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced.

He remembers his covenant forever..He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree

They wandered from nation to nation…He allowed no one to oppress them

Have you spent the time allowing God to remind you of your history together? The wonders that He has worked in your life, the trials he has sustained you through, the love He blankets you with. The act of rehearsing your history may be a personal motivation that deepens your worship to depths you have yet to experience.

Praise the Lord. (v45)

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Psalm 103–So Great Is His Love

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (Ps 103:8)

Of all of the great promises in Scripture, this stands out for those who only see God in terms of His wrath. For many within His people and many more who still stand apart, the image of the Holy Father is not one of love, but one of a God of vengeance, sweeping His eyes east and west watching for any infraction that might be an opportunity to visit retribution upon their heads.

While we are wrong to discount His anger at the ways in which we treat one another upon His creation, we also err when we see His holiness only in terms of righteous wrath. God is patient, demanding holiness, but teaching rather than terminating. When you live with the constant fear of failure and its outcome, the fruit of joy is never harvested in your life. Many Christians have followed this path, living their entire lives with a very narrow understanding of God’s character.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (vv 11-12)

This unmatched, vast and measureless forgiveness is one of the prime character traits of God. Far from the hair-trigger vengeful God of lore, He desires a loving relationship rooted in love much more. When we look to the cross, we don’t see charges waiting to held against us, we see a fresh start that is refreshed by our prayers of repentance and our journey toward greater and greater holiness.

Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, O my soul. (v22)

Grace and peace to you.

image Ministerios Cash Luna

Psalm 99–Seven

O Lord our God, you answered them; you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds. (Ps 99:8)

As the joy and awe of Easter remains fresh in our hearts, we do well to reflect on the reality of God’s demand for holiness. Psalm 99 is linked to 97 as an expression of the benefits of the Lord’s reign over His people. These benefits are not the product of a one-sided covenant however. As mercy is extended to us, we are commanded to pull our boots from the mire that has held us captive and ascend to higher ground. Our core calling is to make holiness the objective of our efforts.

The psalmist also expresses the parallel expressions of God’s reign, mercy and correction. Grace is not license, as some mistakenly interpret it. He corrects those he loves in order to reorient their path. To be abandoned to sin is to be without hope.

Grace and peace to you.

image sarah and mike

God So Loved The World VI

Lent 2011

For God so loved the world… John 3:16

so adv 1. In the way or manner indicated. 2. to the extent or degree indicated or suggested. 3. very or extremely. 4. very greatly. 5. most certainly…

You may come to this passage indirectly, perhaps as your first memory verse or your initial introduction to the great truth of the Bible. As you read and absorb it, you cannot help feel the Spirit move as you encounter this simple but profound reminder of the sacrificial love of God for you.

When you read God’s story from the beginning, on the other hand, and arrive at the fourth gospel and this verse, your eyes read the words in a much different light. Where it was just you and the secrets of your heart before, now you have the entirety of history casting its lengthy shadow over God’s love. The rise and fall and rise and fall tempo of man’s relationship with his creator causes you to wonder why He loves us, and marvels that He does.

Love us, that is. He most certainly does.

Grace and peace to you.

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God So Loved the World IV

Lent 2011

For God so loved the world… John 3:16

so adv 1. In the way or manner indicated. 2. to the extent or degree indicated or suggested. 3. very or extremely. 4. very greatly. 5. most certainly…

The small word so carries a lot of weight in this passage as it modifies the verb loved. In Greek as in English, the word has a wide range of usage. Reading this verse in a wide range of translations finds the interpreters seeing it differently as well.

Today, we read the word in its emphatic sense. God so loved the world … God loved the world so much that he sacrifices the most precious thing, his Son, Himself, a member of the Holy Trinity. His loves translates to loss on His part but gain for the world He loves.

Jesus’ words “Go and do likewise”, though they appear once, lie at the heart of His entire ministry. As God loves sacrificially, so we are called to love sacrificially. Our love is to spread outward without concern for its return. As God gave all, so we are to love likewise.

Grace and peace to you.

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God So Loved the World III

Lent 2011

For God so loved the world… John 3:16

The first thing that catches your attention in the verse is the expression of God’s love for the world. We hear or read the word love and it passes over our personal filters for interpretation. Whatever definition for the word dominates our thinking, proper or improper, is applied to the words of the Lord.

Take a moment to let the word tumble over in your mind. What is love to you? Mere infatuation in its immature form? Is there a physical aspect to love? Does the word conjure up negative feelings, borne from bad experiences in the past? All of these impressions color the way in which the word is heard in our hearts and minds, and it becomes our interpretation of God’s love.

Focus on that word alone today. Say it aloud, not to anyone in particular, and let it hang in the air. As it reverberates, let your heart work on it. What does love mean to you? Are there negative connotations that you need to release? God will replace your notions with His own if you will simply expose them. Does your interpretation need maturing? He will show you a deeper love than you can possibly imagine when you are ready.

Grace and peace to you.

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