The Love of God

I was listening to the radio this past weekend, and they were talking about “love languages.” They were talking in terms of married couples, that is, husband and wife, but it occurs to me that the church is the bride of Christ, so, to some extent, this sort of thing applies to all of us. Of course, it is important that we love the Lord, but we are also commanded to love one another.
All of us have needs, but we have different ways that we treat our needs. Some people advertise their needs to anyone who will listen, while others of us try to hide our needs. I don’t think that whining is a Christian virtue, but, then again, I don’t think that one should expect God to meet every need just through prayer. Somewhere in between, there is a balance. Don’t misunderstand me, sometimes God will send someone to you because you are in need and you have prayed about it. Sometimes, though, once we have prayed, we need to allow ourselves to be led to the person that God wants to have help us. The old adage is, “God helps those who help themselves.” Sometimes it isn’t enough to pray, one has to be willing to step out in faith, although sometimes praying is all one can do. Remember that God sent Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch, and He sent Ananias to Saul, but He also sent Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood to Jesus.
The flip side of this is that we, as Christians, need to be alert, aware, and prayerful of the needs of others. Just because someone voices a need, it doesn’t necessarily follow that God wants us to tend to that need; He may have a different plan than the one that seems obvious. On the other hand, just because someone doesn’t ask for our help (or even specifically says that they don’t want our help), it doesn’t necessarily follow that they don’t need it (word of caution, though, if you try to help someone who has specifically asked you not to help, make sure that it’s of God, or you’re just going to make a mess). We should have the kind of love for people that God has; to see the needs, and to be ready and able to do what’s best for those around us.
Some years ago, Twila Paris came out with a song (and an album) called, “Cry For the Desert.” At first, the title didn’t make sense to me, but after I got it home, and read through the written text that came with it, I came to realize that ‘desert’ just fits in song lyrics better than, ‘people lost in the wilderness of sin,’ which is what the song is really about. If we love each other, and we love those outside the faith, then we will have compassion for them as well. That involves seeing people the way that Jesus sees them, which isn’t always easy for us to do. More recently, Brandon Heath has come out with a song that says very much the same thing called, “Give Me Your Eyes.”

The Prodigal

Interestingly enough, after posting yesterday on the subject of hypocrisy, during which I wanted to include the lyrics of "Undo" by Rush of Fools (what a name for a Christian group, by the way), I googled for the lyrics, and came up with another blog that was using the lyrics, but her subject was the Prodigal Son. Last night, my pastor taught a study on the Prodigal Son. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, the story has different levels. I think most of us get the idea that the younger son took his inheritance (early), and went to a far country, and wasted it. When he realized what a stupid thing that was for him to do, he decided to go back home and ask his father for a job. When he returned home, however, his father forgave him completely, and put him back in his place as the son of the household.

I think a lot of people overlook the older brother's part of the story, though. When the older brother came in from working in the field, he found a celebration going on. He asked one of the servants what was going on. When he found out that his brother had returned, instead of rejoicing with his father, he became angry. He undoubtedly thought that his brother had dishonored his father, and even the family name, but here is dad making a big fuss about his return. It sounds as though the older brother would have been perfectly happy to have never seen his brother again.

Consider for a moment what Jesus was trying to teach: Not just that there is forgiveness in God, but that sometimes we in the church have a hard time forgiving others in the church. It doesn't even have to be a sin that we are directly a victim of. It's interesting, too, that Jesus told this parable to religious people who were criticizing Him for hanging out with sinners. Clearly, these religious people didn't understand that these "sinners" had been forgiven, and were welcome in the Kingdom. It was the religious people whose souls needed mending, but they were too busy being better than everybody else. Ever meet anybody like that? Ever been anybody like that?

It's interesting, too, that the older brother, when he heard the commotion, didn't ask his father what was going on, he asked one of the servants. You might think that it was simply more convenient--the servant was right there--but, really, whom should he have been talking to? And even when his father came out and talked to him, he was angry with his father, and felt cheated. So why is it that the father didn't tell the older brother before he started the party? Maybe because the older brother wasn't communicating with his father the way he should have. Maybe that's why he asked a servant, instead of talking to dad.

Yet, we know that God wants to hear from us. We know that God wants to supply our needs, even when we don't know what our needs are. We know that God wants us to be joyful. God doesn't want us to be jealous of each other. If it seems that somebody else got a better deal than we did, maybe it's because we aren't seeing the kind of sacrifice that the other person made in order to obtain that reward, or maybe it's just because we aren't taking our needs before God in the first place. The Bible talks about not having as a result of not asking, and then when you do ask, you ask amiss. We need to be honest with ourselves, and with God, to bring our needs before Him, and let Him meet our needs as He sees fit--not as we see fit.

Christmas Is Coming

Here we are at the end of November. Only a few more "shopping days" 'til Christmas. Everybody wants to know what they're getting for Christmas. We've already been given a great gift. It's available to everyone, but some people won't accept it. Some would, if those of us that understand it could make it clear just what it is, and how easy it is to obtain it. It's a free gift, but that doesn't mean it doesn't cost anything. What does that mean? I'll try to explain, but let me remind you of the scripture that says Great is the mystery of Godliness (1 Timothy 3:16). Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:3) that you must be born again. Whatever you think you had before accepting salvation, it isn't yours anymore. It might still be in your possession, but it isn't yours. It belongs to God. Really, it always did anyway, so it's not really a loss...Sometimes it seems like a great loss. Apostle Paul also wrote once, "What fruit had ye in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed?" It took me awhile to understand that question, because I read it as if he was challenging the Romans on the ground that they were ashamed of something that they did before they accepted Jesus Christ. I couldn't understand what could be wrong with being ashamed of something that one did before they had direction... Then, after some prayer, I realized that he was challenging them on the grounds that they were ashamed of what they were doing for Christ, and kind of wishing for the days before they got saved. Very much like the Children of Israel got out in the wilderness and started wishing that they were back in Egypt. The point being that there will be times when it seems like life was better before you got saved, Notice I said 'seems.' The Bible also says that it rains on the just and the unjust, but we have a bad tendency to not remember the bad times in our past.

I saw something in a sit-com once where one of the main characters is trying to explain prayer. He said, "Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you get what we need, and sometimes, you just get what you get." A lot of times, the things we need the most, we don't even pay attention to, because they don't look like the things that we want. Sometimes we get things that we don't even understand why we got them until much, much later, and then it is often too late--we've already discarded it, thinking it wasn't something we wanted. All too often, too, the things that we want, are not what we need, and can keep us from getting what we need. The late Ruth bell Graham once said that if God answered every prayer, she'd have married the wrong man three times. Of course, she didn't really mean that God doesn't answer prayer, but His answer is 'No' a lot more often than we would like. What we have to keep in mind is that He says no because He has something better for us.

I hope that helps, Lyn. I'll be praying for you.