You are loved, I am loved

The simple truth that we are loved is somehow the most difficult to absorb in the sense that our knowing we are loved makes a difference in our lives. Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Yea, yea I know that, but do you really know it?

Stacey Campbell tells the story of how a mouse got loose about her house, and finished up in her jeans. Now Stacy is frightened to death of mice, and this day as she and her husband were driving down the road Stacey discovered this lump in her jeans. When she felt the lump it was soft and furry. It was of course the mouse, and she freaked out. Luckily it was her husband who was driving. “There's a mouse in my pants” screamed Tracey. “I know” her husband responded. But did he know that Tracey had a mouse in her pants, the same way that Tracey knew she had a mouse in her pants? I think not. Tracey knew that she knew, that she knew.

In the same way it is only when we know that we know, that we know that God loves us (in other words that we experience His love in a profound way) that we are changed. Stacey had the kind of knowledge about the mouse that changed her behaviour. So we too need to know that we are loved in this way. When I hear of others who have deep personal encounters with Him, there is something that raises up within me and says “I want that.”

We can have as much of God as we want, the problem many times is that we want other stuff more. I cry out to Him for a closer walk with Him. I tell Him to come to me, no matter what the cost. I tell Him to ignore me when I ask for anything else, when I am distracted by the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life! Change my heart oh God! Then I tell myself. I am beloved of God. I need to keep saying it until I believe it, and then I need to say it because it is true! I am loved by almighty God.

Father bring me to the place where I know, that I know, that I know that I am loved by You. In Jesus name Amen!

There is no resurrection without a death

At this Easter time we who know the Lord naturally turn to consider the One who gave himself for us. Starting with His humble washing of the disciples feet, His actions and His attitude symbolize His willingness to take the lowest place. They show His patience with the immaturity of the disciples (and so with ours), His willingness to bear on the Cross the sins of the whole world (including yours and mine), and to forgive those who drove cruel spikes through His hand and His feet. In all this He shines as an example to imitate, but most of us fall far short of this most of the time. In fact we can't even start to be like Him without His help, not even close. If we are to follow Him and to become more like Him, to be transformed into His likeness, then we will need to go through a series of deaths and resurrections in the here and now!

We were looking at Isaiah 30 in our last weekly service. It's worth looking at! We were asking what needed to die in the attitudes of Israel of the exile, and what needs to die in us so that we can become more like Him. When we put our trust in anything except God (as Israel had done), we (like them) inevitable find out that it backfires (verses 1-5). When we continue to leave God out of the equation, trusting in ourselves or even others as opposed to God, we get into trouble. When we refuse to deal with the things in our lives that need to be dealt with (verses 10 and 11), then things build up and build up until, as in verses 13 and 14, the high and towering walls we have build to keep Him out bulge and collapse with a sudden devastating collapse.

Far too often we continue to peruse all our own way until the disaster, the loneliness, emptiness and the pain catch up with us. That is until we reap the living death that “doing it my way” brings. This part of us needs to die, our radical independence from God needs to die, our self seeking needs to die, our determination to get even with others taking revenge into our own hands needs to die, our pride needs to die. These are just some the many things that keep us from Him in the first place, that keep us from peace, that demonstrate that we do not trust Him to work things out for us. We think that if we don't be always be looking out for number one then no one will. And in doing this, we close our ears to His solutions. But when we come to the end of ourselves we hear Him say “I will look after you if trust in me. Do it my way and you will live."

When we find ourselves in this place of death, our salvation is found in turning back to Him in “quietness and confidence.” This is where our strength lies (verse 15). Until we come to this place our lives continue to crumble before our very eyes (verse 16 and 17). In the meantime, the Lord waits so that He can be gracious to us (verse 18). Like those who would rescue the drowning need to wait until the frantic struggling ceases before they can be rescued, so He waits for us to stop struggling, to come to the end of ourselves and cry out to Him in surrender. And when we do, He brings us many things including His comfort (verse 19). He shows us the way to live our lives, giving us teachers to show us the way (verse 20), and we learn to hear His voice guiding us in the way that we should go, and helping us get back on the path when we have strayed (verse 21). And not only this, He gives us a loathing for the addictions and the influences that lead us astray in the first place and kept us stuck. He tells us “You will loth them saying 'Get away detestable idols'” (verse 22). He also provides abundantly for us and heals all of the wounds of the fruit of our rebellion. He heals our broken hearts (verses 23-26).

So He waits for you and me, so He can do all of these things. He waits until we start to see and feel and experience clearly the results and consequences of our independence from Him. He waits for us to be willing to die to ourselves, for us to be willing by His Spirit to put to death the deeds and the desires of the flesh (Romans 8:13). And then He promises resurrection in the here and now. At the end of time, yes that of course, but also in the here and now. He came that we might have life in all it's fullness (John 10:10), but it will not happen unless we are willing to cooperate with Him in putting to death that which needs to die, so that His resurrection life may course through us. That is what this passage in Isaiah is all about. It is in turning to Him in quietness and confidence as we sit before Him that His resurrection power starts its wonderful work in us and gives us the will to do what is good and pleasing and fulfilling in Him. Truly there is no resurrection without death! Are you willing to die (am I) so that you (I) may truly live?

If you want to pray: Father I choose to cooperate with Your Spirit to put to death the deeds and desires of the sinful nature. Lord replace those desires that lead me astray, with a desire and an ability to worship You and to give You the praise, the honour and the Glory that You so richly deserve. In Jesus' name Amen

(Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7)

We are commanded to love God and love our neighbour. The colour of our love (what it looks like) can be seen in our response and attitude in two directions (a) horizontally down here towards each other, and (b) vertically upwards towards God. The Scripture tells us that “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Some versions have it that we love Him because He first loved us, other versions omit the “Him.” For the Christian (i.e. the “we” of the context) both things are true. That is that our ability to love at all, be it Him, others or ourselves is because He initiated and initiates love. He is the (ongoing) source, the motivator and the enabler of love. This is true whether it comes to us through others who may not even acknowledge Him, or if it comes directly in our one on one relationship with Him.

The first, and perhaps clearest time I heard God's voice (I don't know how I knew it was Him, I just did) He asked me “Why are you running away from me Phil, all I want you to do is to love for me.” I cringe when I think about it now, but I told Him “I don't need you for that.” With 20/20 hindsight I should have solved the problems of the World while I still knew everything (I was sixteen).

There was a song “chip, chip” I heard on steam radio when I was boy. The song compared our love to a mansion and how the negative things in life chip away at it. One stanza stands out “One little wrong brings on the gloom, puts a chill in-a every room.” It's easy to love when things are going well, but what is your response (mine) to pain, disappointment, to being manipulated, used, betrayed, despised, marginalized, hated? Life can be (is) tough, and the school of hard knocks knocks the stuffing out of you. It wasn't that long after this, before my mansion of love looked like a war zone! I came to realize how shallow my love was, how much of it was selfish, and dependent on getting it back from others. I will only love you if ....... God's love is unconditional and broken and wounded I needed to come to Him to fill up my “love deficit” as councilors are fond of saying when love runs out on us.

So I want to look briefly at the two aspects of the description of love in the title of this post. Firstly then the colour of our love towards others starting with “Love bears all things.” Jesus is our example here. The Message paraphrase of 1 Peter 2:23 reads “They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.” Please do not misunderstand this, Jesus is no wimp! He was quick to take up the cause of injustice to others. He makes a whip of chords, overturns the tables of the money changes in the Temple. They were cheating the people, and He drove them out (John 2:15). On the other hand personal insults He bears without retaliation, putting His trust God because He knows that God works all things together for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:8). What is important to realize here is that our love is diminished when we hold grudges. Bitterness poisons not only us, but those we want to love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:4,5). Love bears all things.

Next, love believes all things. Love is not quick to jump to conclusions about others, about their motives, about what they do and why they do them. Love is not quick to condemn, but will seek to understand where the other person is coming from. Love is quick to believe in others, knowing that believing in them can be the very hand up that they need to enable them to get out of the pit that they themselves or others have dug for them. Love is quick to forgive.

Love hopes all things. While love is not quick to believe the wrong about others, there does come a time when we need to face reality. To trust someone when they continue on an ongoing basis to prove conclusively by their actions and attitudes that they are not trustworthy, then we can no longer believe. But we can still hope. To continue to trust when the evidence points to an unwillingness on the part of the other person to change, to see where they are wrong, is not helpful to them. Love needs to say “no” at times. Sometimes love needs to oppose. But love does it for the right reasons, for their sake not for ours. But we can still hope, and we can still pray and we can still love. We need to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.

Love endures all things. Love starts with bearing all things and ends with enduring all things. Well what is the difference? When we can no longer believe, when we can no longer hope, we can still bear all things, we can still endure. The difference is that love goes through the process and remains constant through it all. We can endure through gritted teeth because we have no choice. But to continue to love in spite of it all is a choice (at least it starts with a choice). We do have the choice to choose not to be quick to jump to conclusions, we do have the choice to give the benefit of the doubt and we do have the choice to hope and pray and trust God. And when we do this, when we submit to the character polishing that God intends though our obedience to His command to love our neighbour as ourselves, then we bring in the Kingdom. When we do this we please the only one who in the end counts, we please the Lord. But all this raises a huge questions. How on earth can we do this? Who can love their enemies, who ever did? Well Jesus did! As they drove cruel spikes through His hands and feet He prayed “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). I want to be like Him, I am not, but I want to be.

There is a heresy that I hear Christians saying all the time. “Jesus could do this or that because He is God.” To say this is to deny that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2). Jesus did what He did on earth, as a man filled with the Spirit of God. If this was not so, then He could not be an example to imitate. We could admire Him, but we could not be expected to be like Him. On the other hand we cannot be expected to be like Him without the same Spirit that empowered Him as a man. This is why my saying that I did not need Him in order to love for Him was so very, very foolish. I need Him, and I need Him desperately, for this and many other things! With man it is impossible, with God all things are possible (Luke 18:27).

So how does it work, how do we tap into His love? This is the second aspect of what we see in the phrase “We love because He first loved us.” When we turn to the Lord we are included in the “we” of this verse. It has to start there, but it does not stop there. There is a principle behind all this, and it is that we are intended to draw the strength, the desire and the wherewithal to love, from our ongoing connection (relationship) with Him. When we are in right relationship with Him we are positioned to receive His love and to become a channel of it to this wicked and hurting world. And the more we allow His love to pour out through us, the more of it we get it ourselves. How else can we love our enemies? It is not natural. It is not intended to be, it is supernatural and powerful. He does all of the first part mentioned above, supremely. He bears, believes, hopes and endures and continues to pour out His love into our hearts (Romans 5:5). He forgives when we blow it, over and over and over. He endures and continues to believe in us. He hopes and instills hope in us, He bears all things, hopes all things endures and believes and hopes and endures. He believes in us when He tells us that we can do all things through Him (Philippians 4:13). When you do your part (and I mine) He “is all the while effectually at work in you energizing and creating in you the power and desire, both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight (Philippians 2:13 AMP).

So do any of us do this perfectly? Of course not, for “in many things we all fail,” (James 3:2), and no more so than in our oh so finite love. What we need to do, what I need to do, is to cooperate with Him in giving Him place, a platform in our lives to experience His “Love poured out into our hearts (Romans 5:5 again).” There is so much in the World that chips away at our love, that we need (I need) that love to be daily replenished. God's love is a practical love, God's love is an enabling love, God's love is an empowering love. It is not an abstract thing, and it is not an automatic thing. We need (I need) to take time in His presence. The first commandment is to love Him with all that we are and have, and it is as we seek to obey Him that we open up ourselves for Him to pour His love into our hearts. I want more, I need more to continue to love in this wicked and hurting World that by and large only looks out for number one. I cannot love my enemies in my own strength, I cannot. I cannot do it without Him, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

If you want to pray: Father I know deep down that love is the answer, but without You I cannot love as You intend me to love. Even with You it is a struggle many times. It is only when I love You with all that I am and have, that I even begin to fully receive Your love. Please show me my part in getting rid of the things in my life that hinder Your love flowing in and through me. With You all things are possible. With Your help and strength I can do all things. With Your help I can get up when I fall. With Your help I can bring Glory to Your name, and I want to. I want to be like You. In Jesus name.

Truth, tradition and interpretation.

Most of us confuse truth with what the particular group we belong to, believes. We used to talk a lot about peer pressure, and I don't really know why we still don't, because it is everywhere. I see it in the University, I see it in the church, I see it in the social groups I interact with. I see it in me.

I have mentioned some of these things before, but in terms of academia I keep coming back to a book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” by Thomas S. Kuhn. Kuhn's basic point is that Scientists are subject to peer pressure just like the rest of us, and that progress in Science is often held up because of the influence of individuals or groups that hold onto theories and opinions long after the evidence points away from them. I blogged earlier that I am not invested in the truth or falsity of the theory of evolution (November 11th 2012). My point is that whatever is true in terms of development is a description of how God does or did things. So my faith is not threatened by the theory of evolution. Nevertheless the more I read, the more convinced I am that macro evolution is incorrect.

The word “evolution” is a useful word (though a red flag to many Christians). The dictionary defines it as any process of formation or growth or development. So for example we can speak of the evolution of the airplane. The idea of natural selection is also useful. I heard an opinion recently that suggests that there is a process of natural selection among biologists. The idea being that if you do not believe in the full fledged theory of evolution you are severely hampered in career and other advances in academia! I have no doubt that there is some truth in this. And of course this then skews the “Scientific” opinion on these matters. And it not just biology, it enters into the social Sciences as the pressure to conform to politically correct doctrines. Again as I have said elsewhere, most of the so called faith Science disputes have to do with interpretation of the facts, rather than the facts themselves.

And this happens within the Faith community too. The basic point here is that we are all people and we are all, at some point, biased. We are all influenced by our environment, culture upbringing and the strongly held opinions of those with whom we have to do. I regard myself as fortunate to have been associated with a (relatively) large cross section of Christian denominations and groups. I say fortunate because the interaction with sincere believers of various stripes has helped me to see both sides of numerous issues, that far too often have divided us. What I am saying is that the same problem that I have observed in academia seems to hold true among Christians. The biggest problem that I see is that we fail to distinguish between what the Bible says, and what our group/denomination/ friends think it says. In other words the biggest differences among those who hold a very high view of Scripture are matters of interpretation.

I have said this before too, but it bears repeating. There are two equal and opposite errors here. The first is to be ever learning and never arriving at the truth of the basics of the faith (2 Timothy 3:7). The basics are identified in Hebrews 6:1,2 as “repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.” The other “ditch” we can fall into is thinking that we know it all, that we have arrived. Paul tells us that “if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2). And both sides can sling mud the one accusing the other of being wishy washy, the other accusing the other of giving pat and shallow answers to complex questions. Loving God with all of our minds surely involves separating the essentials from the inessentials. I do not need to separate myself from those who disagree on the thorny issue of whether Adam had a navel :-)!

Is it any coincidence that the good Lord gave us two ears and one mouth? I think not! You need a verse for this? Well okay “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). All this speaks of humility, the very opposite of thinking we have arrived. The Word of God is so deep, we will spend eternity studying it and still not exhaust it. When we think we have arrived on every issue, we miss what God is doing in the wider body, and we miss what He wants to do in our lives. When differences bring us into anger, there is surely something wrong. If I have the truth why would I feel threatened by differences? As iron sharpens iron, so man sharpens man. We are meant to learn from each other, and there is so much more than any one of us, or any single group or denomination has. On top of this, if my view is correct, I will not win over the other party by getting angry! Getting angry over sincere differences is likely a sign that we should look more closely at the issue!

If you want to pray: Lord give me the grace, the love and the humility to be all that You call me to be. Help me to treat others as you would, help me to listen to others, especially those who are wrong :-)!

Walk, stand, sit! Not! Resolutions or revolutions?

If you do the 'read the Bible in a year' thing, you will likely have read Psalm 1 in the last couple of days. Verse 1 reads “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful;” It's all about not letting the World squeeze you into its mold, about being intentional about what we allow to influence us, about where we spend our time, what we think about, what stands we take, and what comes out of our mouths!

I have not always gone with New Year's resolutions (especially New years revolutions where I promise to change radically for the rest of my life!), but this year, I am aware that I need to change a number of things. In the last day's post I was talking about how easily we drift away, how easily we loose the reality of His presence. Perhaps you have never truly felt it, but most of us can look back on some experience of Him and wish it was like that again, wish that we could have more of the same.

God wants relationship with us. Jesus tells the Father in His high priestly prayer that the essence of eternal (abundant) life is knowing Him (John 17:3). I am probably not saying anything particularly deep when I say that relationships are hard. I have gone to a couple of extremes in trying to make them work for me. In particularly in the past there was too much fighting then, when that left me bleeding an wounded, I went to the other extreme and became a conflict avoider, seeking peace at any price. What I learned from the school of hard knocks in the latter attempt to make things work, is that you cannot make up for what the other person is not willing, or not able, to give to the relationship. God knew this before I did :-).

And He will not make up in His relationship with you or I what we are not willing (or able without His help) to give. Having said this, He is the one who spread wide His arms on the cross essentially saying to you and I and to the World “You will go to hell over my dead body.” He came to heal the broken hearted, He came to set us prisoners free (in particular from our addictions). He came to forgive and paid the price so that a Just and Holy God could welcome the broken, the hurting and the sinful into relationship with Himself. In other words, at incredible cost to Himself, He took the initiative in reaching out to each and every one of us. He pursues us too, but He will not force us. He loves us too much to force us out of the poor choices that we make on an ongoing basis! Our choices are powerful!

So what I am saying is that God is the initiator. He took the initiative in the costly business of making it possible for us to have relationship with Him in the first place, and He takes the initiative in perusing us. But He also waits for us to respond. It's a romance, a Divine romance. Is there anything so sad as unrequited love? He has poured out His love on us. God so loved the world He gave His one and only Son that whosoever turns to Him in trust and total surrender will not perish but will have abundant life in the here and now and life everlasting in the hereafter. So the questions is “What is my response, what is yours?”

Paul in the letter to the Romans (12:1ff) tells us that the only reasonable response to the tender mercies of God, is to present ourselves as living sacrifices, which is our spiritual worship. And when we do, He meets us where we are (as opposed to where we should be!). It is so easy to loose our zeal our passion for Him. When we do, we need to “buy gold from Him refined in the fire,” that we “may be rich...” (Rev. 3:18). Part of this “buying gold,” is to get rid of everything that hinders our relationship with Him. The second verse of the Romans 12 is important, it tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Part of this is to disallow the things that hinder, that is the council and the influence of all that is ungodly. We live in a society that is fixated on pornography and materialism, that is consumed with business, with meaningless entertainment and the like. It not that all of these things are evil in and of themselves (though some of them are). But the real problem is that they crowd out and choke the life we have in God. They leave no room for Him or His Word, for true fellowship with Him and each other.

The Christian life is not primarily about not doing the things that hinder, it is not about rules or regulations, it is about keeping my primary focus on Him. It is about nurturing my relationship with Him. So I need to spend more, and more quality time with Him. I need to hear His voice, I need to feel His presence, I need a practical revelation of how much He loves me. I need His help, His strength, His wisdom and His grace. When we do our part He works in us to do what we cannot do without Him. And then He is the one who brings real change, real revolution. So the good news is that it is not all up to me.

If you want to pray: Father it's not about me, it's about You. Please give me what I need to follow hard after You. Give me what I do not have, so cannot give, in this regard. Fascinate me with Yourself and continue to draw me and bring me into Your presence. Let me find my rest and peace and joy and hope and strength in You. Show me my part in all this, and then help me to play it. In Jesus name Amen.

Keep the merry, dump the myth?

I came across this recently on Youtube. It's about Christmas, you know keep the merry thing, but don't believe about the Christ thing! I know where these guys are coming from, I do. I have been there, bought the t-shirt. In fact I have a whole closet full of them. But they are greatly myth-taken :-). It is a strange but undeniable fact of the Christian life that when you walk close to the Lord the reality of the Kingdom walks with you, and when you drift away, it all seems so unreal. And the unreality seems to be proportional to the distance you allow between you and Him.

And I do mean allow! As a brash teenager (hundreds of years ago) I told God I did not need Him, and as a consequence drifted away from what I knew to be true. During that time I thought of my earlier beliefs as naive. But then came the time when my life was so messed up, I could no longer deny that I needed help. Times like this are crossroads. We can blame others for the mess we are in, refusing to admit that we had any part in the mess, or we can take stock, fess up and return to the One who loves us so much that He died for us, so that the broken, hurting and sinful like me, can find healing and peace and hope and joy again.

Now part of this drifting away thing, is that I believe the lies. And there are usually two equal an opposite lies that are told, depending on which one you and I are most likely to believe. A victim of abuse for example can, on the one hand, believe that it's all their fault, or that their lives are messed up forever on the other. We can even blame God for allowing this or that to happen.

The thing about a good lie, is that it contains something that (for you or I) is believable, and often some of it is true. The thing about the title to this post, is that nobody has perfect theology, so at least some of the things you and I believe are wrong. Coming back to abuse, it is very clear that others do things that are wrong, and in may ways deserve our resentment. But resentment keeps us stuck, while not really punishing the offender. We need to forgive for our own sake. Forgiveness severs the power the abuser has over us. It is particularly hard if we are blaming God, since deep down we know He has done nothing wrong. However we may still feel that He has, and we will need to forgive Him in order to restore fellowship. He will sort out our confusion about these things when we have forgiven. Another problem in this area is that it is often hard to forgive is ourselves. But again, when we don't, we keep ourselves trapped in self hate!

It helps me to know that all unforgiveness is, in the end, evil. As a Christian I know this because of the severity of the Biblical teaching on this issue. To the extent that I forgive, I will be forgiven. When I come out of denial and take responsibility for my life, I start to see more clearly how much I need to be forgiven. Staying in denial keeps me from intimacy with God, from the reality of His presence that heals restores and comforts me, from the strength to do what I need to do, and the strength not to do the things that I have learned from the School of hard knocks hinder me.

I did not always believe what I now believe about the Bible. I came to it with a dawning realization that this book knows us (knows me). It knows for example that what we do and what we believe are inexorably linked (See Romans 1:18 and coming post). It knows our propensity to rationalize behaviour (Jeremiah 17:9), it knows that there are consequences to what we do, that we reap what we sow. On top of this from the school of hard knocks I discovered more and more, at a deeper and deeper level that the things Bible forbids are the things that bring negative consequences into my life.

But it's not all negative. I more and more discover that as I follow the things it commands I experience the freedom it promises. “If you continue in My Word, You will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free. If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:31ff). And the more I continue, the more free I am and the more sure I am of the things I have believed. And the less I continue and follow the less sure I am of these things. When I do the things I myself believe to be wrong, then I enter the fog that in my better times I know covers the whole of humanity including yours truly when I grow lukewarm or cease to follow.

In short I have learned by experience that when God says “no,” He does it for my provision and protection. When I fall, and when I fess up to it, then I have Someone on my side to take care of my mess, to set me on my feet, to cleanse me and help me start over. This is what Christmas is all about. This is the reason for the season, this is the ground of my “merry” and the certainty of what some of you guys call the myth. If this is you then, as I said before you are greatly myth-taken and it gets worse, because in addition you are myth-ing out big time :-)!

Take away lust add intimacy

We have confused unbridled passion for love. Perhaps it is no wonder as you can scarcely go to a movie without seeing this one and that one jumping into bed together at the drop of a hat. And there is a subtle lie behind it all, and that is that this is normal and natural and good and right and healthy. In the meantime we fall out of our relationships as easily as we fall into bed. Why should this surprise us? When we are told over and over there is no difference between us and the lower animals, and when in response we behave like them, then surely it is no wonder our relationships are like theirs. I mean how long do dogs stay married?

We tell each other “I love you,” but what do we mean? Is there more to love than wanting to jump into bed with each other? Do we even know what love is? Here is one description of it: “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

We confuse love with lust when we say “Because I love you I want your body.” We confuse love with passion when we say “I love you but I have needs.” We confuse love with lust when we promise to remain faithful only as long as we both shall love. We embrace true love when we say and mean that if and when I no longer feel love, I will choose to love, and I will love you.

We start to embrace true love when before we jump into bed we determine that if and when we do, we will commit to each other to push through the inevitable relationship pain that comes at the end of the honeymoon. When we do this, and when we follow through to breakthrough, we come through to the kind of relationship that we were intended to have with God and with each other, we start to come into true intimacy.

Well if he (she) would love me like that, then I would respond the same way. Maybe, but it's hard when all you get (give) is “I, me, my.” We need help to get started (I do), and when we get started we need help to continue (I do). And that help is freely available, but we have to stop putting up walls against it (more than I do).

Someone described intimacy as “into me see.” It may sound scarey to let another do that, but we will not experience true intimacy while we hide who we are from each other, behind the high and defensive walls. The walls may keep some of the bad out, but they also keep the good out, and they keep our pain and baggage and fear intact inside the walls.

And we get stuck in responding the same old, same old way. We know that the World is a scarey place and, when we have been hurt, we can be reluctant to let anyone in again. What we need is a safe place to start, and the safest place is God. Not necessarily the God you encountered in Church nor in those who call themselves Christian but do not exhibit Christ like qualities. And this has been and is me at times, but Christ is the one to whom I turned, and He is the One who has been faithful and enabled me to love again. Indeed the Scriptures tell us “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NIV). Our ability to love at all comes because there is one who initiated love, and that is God. He is the source, the essence, the motivation, the first and the last, the author and finisher of love. True intimacy starts when we stop fighting Him, turn to Him in repentance, receive His forgiveness and grace and strength, His hope and joy, His peace and love. God so loved the World that He gave His only Son that whosoever in this undeserving world should turn to Him in this way should find all of these things in Him. It starts with intimacy with Him, it continues with intimacy with Him and it will end with intimacy with Him. This is the essence of eternal life to know the Father the only true God, and Jesus Christ the Son He sent (John 17:3).

If you want to pray: Father, please reveal Your Son in me. Show me the walls that I have erected to keep You out, and what I need to do to let You in. Give me what I need to love and live again. Help me to be the person You call me to be as I draw near to You, and become more like You in Your extravagant healing love. Flow through me, in Christ's name Amen.