Love One Another

There are a lot of angry voices in the world. In the news, in politics, social media - you hear them everywhere. Many of these voices claim to be followers of Jesus. It can be so confusing. Fortunately, Jesus told us how we can spot a real follower of his. This is what Jesus said: “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35 (CSB) The idea here is: love is something one does - it can be seen. These loving actions are a true marker of a follower of Jesus.

 

In the letter that James, the brother of Jesus, wrote in the New Testament, he says explicitly that this is so. James wrote: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that —and shudder. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.” (James 2:14-22 NIV)

 

The apostle John agrees with James when he wrote: “We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:3-6 NIV)

 

What then did Jesus command? How did Jesus live? The apostle John in his gospel gives us the answers to these questions. John wrote that Jesus said, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:10-12 NIV) You can spot a true Christian if they are a loving person who follows Jesus – who is learning to love like Jesus loved. This is how Jesus lived.

 

Love grows in a Christian like a fruit. It may start small, but it certainly grows. I encourage all Christians to obey Jesus’ command to love one another, growing this fruit. And I encourage all those who are seeking the real and living God to look for Christians who love like Jesus commanded. They can help you know the Truth.

A Change of Heart

 A story is told of a mother who brought her son into church one Sunday. The boy stood on the pew and the mother asked the little boy to sit down. “Please sit down,” she asked. “No,” answered the boy. More firmly the Mom said, “Please – sit – down.” “No!” said the boy. Exasperated, the Mom pushed the boy down into a sitting position with a loud “SIT DOWN!” The boy looked angrily at his Mom and said, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!” 

We don’t want to be like that little boy, looking like an obedient child, sitting so nicely, but in his heart he is actually completely different. What can change our hearts? True repentance.

 

Jesus once told a series of three parables, recorded in Luke chapter 15, about repentance. Seems that there were certain folks who took exception to Jesus’ continued relationship with people who were known to be of a low moral character. They did not see that these people had repented. Jesus explained the situation to his accusers in these parables. They apparently did not know what repentance really was.

 

Jesus spoke of a shepherd who had 100 sheep when one wandered away and became lost. The shepherd found the lost sheep and brought it home. In the parable, Jesus equates the shepherd finding the lost sheep as the moment of repentance. What did the sheep do to repent? Nothing.

 

Then Jesus tells another similar parable of a woman who had 10 coins and lost one of them. She searched and searched until she found it. Jesus again equated the finding of the coin with true repentance. What did the coin do to repent? Nothing.

 

Knowing that this could be confusing, Jesus tells a third parable to clarify his point. It is often called the parable of prodigal son. In this tale, the younger son insults his father, demands his inheritance before the father dies, and goes off and spends it all on wild living. After he has spent it all, he can’t make enough money to even feed himself. He decides then to ask his Dad if he could just be an employee, no longer worthy to be his son.

 

His Dad sees the boy coming from a long way away and runs to him, hugging and kissing him, calling him his son. At this point the boy stopped, and, realizing that he father really did love him, asked for forgiveness. Nothing was said about becoming an employee. Here was the point of repentance: the boy believed his father and accepted his father’s love. This is repentance. What did the boy do? Nothing, really. He just came and asked for forgiveness. The relationship between a father and wayward son was restored. The father initiated, and the son accepted, his father’s restoring love.

 

The associates of Jesus had reestablished their relationship with Father God by believing in Jesus. They were “sitting down on the inside”. They had repented by receiving Jesus, by accepting God’s love. Like the sheep and the coin, the boy was lost and then found. We too can be found by God when we receive Jesus and His love. This is the heart of true repentance: a change of heart about Jesus. This is how we become a child of God.

Fruit In Old Age

I have always wondered about that part of scripture where Jesus curses the fig tree for not having fruit, even though it was not the season for bearing fruit. Here is that passage of scripture:

Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 (NIV) The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

Why did Jesus curse this fig tree? Maybe it was just a setup to show the power of believing? Since every time in the Gospels when this incident is recorded Jesus uses it to teach the power of faith, this could make sense. Except that it still doesn’t answer my question, why did Jesus do this? Why was it right for him to expect fruit on a tree in the off season?

Psalm 92:12-15 gives us a clue. “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, "The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him."”

In this passage the righteous old folks will still bear fruit and be fresh and green. Yet old age is not the normal time to bear fruit. Having children is for the young. Older folks begin to wither since God has bound all things over to decay. How then do they do have fruit at the wrong time? By proclaiming that the Lord is upright and that there is no wickedness in him.

How do they know this? They have lived a full life. They have seen good and evil. How did they prevent their hearts from bitterness from seeing all the evil that happens to people and that may even have happened to them? They knew God as their Rock. They have come to trust Him and His word. The confessed the truth about God in worship and praise. They have seen and declared that there is no wickedness in the Lord their God.

Their fruit is a supernatural fruit that does not depend on the anything natural. Jesus was looking for supernatural fruit. This is why, I think, that Jesus had a right to expect fruit. He wasn’t looking for naturally generated figs, but supernaturally generated figs. The fruit God is looking for from us is not the kind we can produce on our own, but the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us. 

Anger

 If you watch the news, listen to your friends (or former friends!), wander around Facebook, or any social media, something is bound to give you an opportunity to be angry. Seems as if our entire social environment is purposely feeding people’s anger, flaming it into a bonfire of rage. It doesn’t matter whether you are Indigenous or non-native, democrat, independent, or republican, white or black, there’s plenty of real things happening to get the heat to rise.

 

So, what do we do with all this anger? Years ago I had severe lower back pain. The doctors could find no physical cause that would produce the level of pain I experienced. After a while, I discovered I was very angry, yet I wouldn’t admit this to myself. Why? Because I was angry with God. How could I, as a Christian, justify my being angry with God? I couldn’t, so I sublimated my anger. I hid it from myself, yet the physical effects still happened. My lower back tightened, causing real pain. Eventually I found, by admitting to myself that I was angry with God, that my pain went away. It wasn’t the anger in itself that caused my pain, it was the denial of my anger that did that deed.

 

The Bible has a lot to say about anger. Two verses come immediately to mind. One is Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV) - “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Another is James 1:19-20 (NIV) - My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

 

Additionally, the Psalms often are concerned with anger, and much of it is about God’s anger. In the Psalms, God’s anger with evil and wicked people is explored in depth. Yet with God, anger is not about being offended or wanting to retaliate, but about justice. When God acts on his anger, justice is carried out.

 

Our anger does not make God nervous. Nor does it surprise him or cause him to reject us. We don’t need to hide our anger from God. God’s way of dealing with His anger was the cross. Jesus, God incarnate, took upon himself on the cross all the evil humanity has done. Jesus gave his life to forgive all those who angered him. So when we pray, expressing our anger to God, God has the opportunity to help us see things the way he does.

 

When the writers of the Psalms are angry, they turn to God for justice. To leave God out of the equation when we are angry is to experience anger with no hope for justice. This kind of anger progresses to bitterness, hopelessness, and violence. When you are angry, communicate to God about it in prayer. Then wait for God to help you see how to respond out of concern for the people who angered you, instead of getting revenge.

On The Meaning Of Life

A Conversation with Myself as an Introduction

Well Steve, this time you have really bitten off more than you can chew. The meaning of life! Why not pick a more difficult topic! Softening it by locating that preposition in the front won’t help. Who do you think you are? Augustine?

Well Steve, it doesn’t matter who I am as long as I am an honest person. That thing that matters is what I have seen and heard – what I’ve experienced. I can only discover what is already there. If life has meaning, it is not up to me to determine that meaning. So who I am is not the point.

But how can you say that? You can only say what it means to you. Meaning is not a fact that all can verify, it is a value judgment – that’s all. Life just is.

Seems like all the folks who write and edit dictionaries would want to quibble with you. Words mean things. Signs mean things. Actions mean things. If a plant dies it means something. It may mean that there is a lack of water, too much sun, or not the right soil – it is for the searcher to discover the meaning, not arbitrarily determine what is the meaning. Meaning is not created, it is found.

If I am an artist, the painting I make or may not have one meaning for me, and still have yet another meaning for those who contemplate it. That is the beauty of life. It is like a diamond that refracts and reflects light back and forth between its facets. Life without a multiplicity of viewpoints – the reflection and refraction – would be without beauty. And like beauty, meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Another way to say it is like when 6 blind folks met something in their path. One said it was a wall, another a tree, another a rope, still another a fan, another a snake, and yet another a spear. It took all of these disparate views together to understand that what they found was an elephant. So too what one person understands is only relatively true. It can never be the whole.

Your own examples betray you. Only an objective viewer could tell it was a jewel or an elephant. Those within the examples could never know if there were yet more unknown views which would modify their understanding of the whole. Only an objective view of reality can provide meaning for the whole and thereby meaning for the individual observers. You are right in that we, as individual observers, cannot have that objective view. I am only saying that I have met the “storyteller” and have been taught the meaning of the whole.

To say that your experience, and thereby your individual viewpoint, is the one, true, objective view is the height of arrogance!

You misunderstand me. I am not saying that I have the true, objective viewpoint. I am as blind as the next guy. I am saying that I have met the one who is the creator, the architect of life, and that this is the one and only one who has the right to determine the meaning of life. I can only relate to you what I have learned, what I have seen and heard, from this one who made it all. You can see for yourself how faithfully or not faithfully I have relayed the meaning of life by learning from the same one I have learned.

So I invite you to look over my shoulder and see if I have interpreted what I have seen and heard correctly.

Taste and See that the Lord is Good

I've been thinking about Heb 6:4-8 NASU which reads:

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

Here the writer of Hebrews is attempting to define what marks a Christian. Five things are listed:

1. enlightened
2. tasted the heavenly gift
3. partaker in the Holy Spirit
4. tasted the good word of God, and
5. tasted of the powers of the age to come.

The question is, how do these concepts relate to each other? Do they all refer to the same thing, are they sequential, or something else?

Enlightened must refer to coming into a knowledge that you didn't have before. A light bulb just turned on over your head. The same writer uses this term to refer to conversion in Heb 10:32. Paul in Eph 1:18 prays that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened. So not only does this term relate to conversion, but to our ongoing relationship with the Lord. John 1:9 tells us that Jesus is the true light that enlightens (gives light to) every man. It means to receive the knowledge of the truth. So being a Christian means being enlightened.

To what does 'tasting of the heavenly gift refer'? Justification - the forgiveness of sins - is a gift. Salvation is a gift. The Holy Spirit is a gift. The gifts of the Spirit are a gift. Jesus himself is God's gift to us. We are to eat his flesh and drink his blood, metaphorically speaking of course. So it could relate to communion. Maybe our attention needs to be on tasting instead of gift. Since in Heb 2:9 Jesus tasted death for us all, tasting cannot mean a brief, shallow, experience. Peter tells us (1Pet 2:3) that we have tasted the kindness of the Lord. The Psalmist (Ps 34:8) exhorts us to taste and see that the Lord is good. To taste is to experience, to know through experience. We've tasted - experienced - the salvation that God has given to us in Christ. It would be hard to nail it down any finer than this. But notice the emphasis on taste - experience.

A partaker in the Holy Spirit is someone who has experienced the Holy Spirit. The Samaritans and the Ephesian disciples lacked this, and it was noticeable. We are all given the Holy Spirit to drink, but drink we must. And when we do drink, we experience.

Tasted the good word is to experience the gospel.

And taste the powers (dunamis) of the age to come. This seems to refer to those powers or gifts of the Spirit that the Spirit gives to us all. I like what Hughes says in his commentary on Hebrews. "These powers may confidently be identified with the signs, wonders, and miracles mentioned earlier in 2:4 as accompaniments of the preaching of the gospel. They are the dynamic evidence of the activity of the Holy Spirit within the community of believers, manifested particularly perhaps in miraculous healings and deliverances. As such, moreover, they testify to the fact that "the age to come" is already upon them, since its powers are operative in their midst."

It seems that according to the writer of Hebrews that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is part of what makes a Christian a Christian. Yet so many have not drunk what they have been given to drink. Or maybe the land that drinks is not producing fruit? I hope not. Like the writer goes on to say, we are convinced of better things of you. The exhortation is to experience what God has given. Mental assent is not what it is all about. A theoretical belief is inadequate. Experiencing the reality of salvation, the gospel, and the Holy Spirit is our portion of the edible God.