On Suffering

Colossians 3:23 Homemaking

In light of all that is going on in the Middle East with ISIS persecuting Christians and subjecting them martyrdom, I have admittedly been struggling to cope with the fate these people are facing. Most Christians, including myself, have a hope that God will protect them fromharm, and that Hisangels wage constant war against the evil around us. So how, exactly, can God allow such tragic fate to come to the samepeople who call on His name? I’ve belonged to Jesus for many years and still struggle with this aspect of faith. A few days ago, in attempt to answer this question for myself, Iopened the Bibleand refereed to my concordance under the wordsuffering. After reviewing Paul’s sufferings (I never did getto read all of them), something very serious prompted me to write about my findings.What occurred to me is that I am guilty of sharing a slightly…

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Remembering to Love

For some time, God has been speaking to me on the topic of love and abiding in Christ. The two of them go hand in hand. We cannot truly love apart from God (and I  know this by experience without a doubt).  We cannot fear if we have love because perfect love casts out fear.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love (1 John 4:18).

Have you ever noticed that at the root of all our bad behavior is fear? We fear being hurt. We fear failure. We fear insecurity. We fear not being loved. We fear pain. We fear suffering. We want to protect ourselves against these things because we fear them.  There is one thing that overcomes all of this fear. That thing is perfect love.

I know when I am “forgetting” to love when fear of past hurts happening again keeps me on guard and prevents me from being able to love those who persecute me. I don’t fear just for me.  I also fear for others experiencing the hurt I did.  Instead of fearing for others, I should be allowing them to experience the things God allows to make them stronger.  I should be trusting God instead of trying to defend others who I am not called to defend.

Fear also prevents us from forgiving past hurts. It is human instinct to react when we should respond. Often, when I am persecuted, I begin to persecute back and I forget to love.  I forget that I am also quite capable of being a persecutor at times. I have to think, “Do I want to be given the same courtesy I have shown to those who have caused suffering to me?”  It makes me think of the three fingers pointing back at me when I point one finger toward somebody else.  I do this more than I care to admit. It reminds me of  Matthew 7:3, “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye?” It’s easy to use that scripture when referring to somebody else but it was originally intended as a wake up  call to encourage us to examine our own hearts when we are forgetting to love. I am so thankful that God’s love and mercy are perfect and not like mine. I am thankful that God never forgets to love.

Love is the umbrella that protects us and God’s umbrella is big enough to cover all areas of our lives.

Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs (Proverbs 10:12).

I know I have stirred up some conflict in my life.  Praise God for His Great Perfect Love! I love how the Aramaic in Plain English Bible uses the word, “severe” and the Holman Christian Standard Bible uses the word “intense” in 1 Peter 4:8.

And before everything, have a severe love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.

Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins.

God’s love for us is intense.  It is severe.  It is beyond anything we can understand or describe in our finite, sinful, human state.  As long as we live in sinful earthbound bodies we cannot comprehend this kind of love. But, we can experience it! We can experience it when we turn our hearts to Jesus and abide in Christ!  We can experience God’s passionate, intense love through the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. When His Spirit has full authority, we are able to experience this love and it flows out of us as if it were the most natural thing.

When we are unable to love or “forget” to love, then we have turned our eyes away from the Giver of that love. We cut off the natural flow and the pressure builds. We must realize that His love isn’t something we choose to give. It’s something we choose to receive.  Once we receive it then it flows naturally through us. It fills us to the point of spilling over onto every life we come in contact with!  When we are yielding to the Holy Spirit, we are merely a channel of God’s love flowing through us. We could not truly love at all if it were up to us. Love is never something we can take complete credit for.

When we forget to love, usually this means we have fixed our eyes upon ourselves. We turn to self-defense instead of trusting God to make things right. We cut off the channel both to us as well as others. It’s like closing the dam and depriving the flow.

I write this because I am guilty of this more often than I want to admit to myself or anyone else. I stand convicted but not ashamed because I am forgiven and I only have to repent and fix my eyes upon my Savior once again to re-open the flood gates! I want to be a channel of God’s severe, intense love!

While I do believe in accountability and confronting things that hurt God’s church and hinder the Great Commission, I must make sure I do it with the right heart, one that is focused on Him and His glory, not me. I must remember that at times, I am guilty of the very thing I point out in others.  There have been many occasions when I have done things that hinder the spread of the Gospel. The only thing that can fix it is God’s grace through my repentance (turning around completely from the wrong way, to the right).

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied:

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22: 37-40 NKJV).

We love only because He loved us first. This is why we must always keep our hearts focused on Him and open to receive His love. This is our first step in loving Him and loving others.  Once we love Him through accepting His gift of love (Jesus Christ) and continuously abide in that Love (John 15:5), then and only then can we bear the fruit (singular fruit with many parts) of the Holy Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things (Galatians 5:22-23 ISV).

We cannot even love God unless we allow His love to flow into us and back to Him through us.  We do this by saying, “yes” to His invitation. That invitation came when God loved through the sacrifice of His one and only Son.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped out, that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19 HCSB)

…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved (Romans 10:9).

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

We have to remember, although we are spared eternity separated from God (in Hell) through His great love for us, we are still a work in progress until we reach perfection in glory (die and go to Heaven).  We will still make mistakes and will will constantly battle the flesh we now live in, a body born of this world and bent on having its way.  This is why, at times, even though we are in Christ, we take our eyes off of Him and put them on this world.  This is how we “forget” to love.

We hear it said in fairy tales that “true love conquers all”.  The good news is – this is not a fairy tale. True love really does conquer all.  To be more accurate, true love conquered all.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8).

Love does not always feel good. In fact, God Himself set the example that love is about death.  It is a willingness to die to personal gain for the benefit of another.  It means sacrificing yourself for those who you don’t think deserve it.  Love is self-sacrificing. This is the clear message of the cross. Without love, we have nothing.

 But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13: 8-13).

Good Friday

Last night, for the first time, ever, I prepared a Passover meal to observe Passover and The Lord’s Supper on the night that would have been the night of Jesus’ betrayal.  I wanted to do what He did on that night.  That’s what this season is about.  It’s about everything that gives us hope. It’s the season that made the way for me to call myself, Christian.

On this day a little over 2,ooo years ago, my Savior, after being tortured for hours and hanging on a cross for 6 hours, just a few moments ago, I watched Him take His last breath…..

As I watched the earth quake and the veil tearing, fully exposing “The Holy of Holies”.  As I witnessed the Pharisees and Priests grieving over the destruction, I wondered what was going through their minds.  Did they notice that God’s presence had left the temple?  Did they wonder where it went or how they would ever find it again?  Did they even question for a moment that perhaps they were wrong?  We can never know for sure.  But, we can know one thing, God’s presence was not gone, it just moved.

Soon after the resurrection, the Temple of God became people and the Holy of Holies resides in each of us as believers.  May we all regard His temple as holy and sacred and treat is as such.  God’s Holy Spirit dwells in me, reconciling me to God and giving me hope of an eternity separated from sin instead of an eternity in death, forever separated from God.

The only way this is possible is because Jesus took all my sin upon Himself when He became the sacrificial lamb. The lamb that knew no sin became sin in order that the human race could be reconciled to God. When God looks at Christians, He does not see sin.  He sees Christ.

It saddens my heart so deeply that so many people reject this because they think this world has something better to offer.  It grieves me even more deeply when Christians bow to the pressures from culture in order to be accepted by men.  We cannot be accepted by a godless culture and accepted by God at the same time.  We sell out one to be accepted by the other.

I found out recently that the word, “excruciating” originates from the description of the suffering resulting from crucifixion because there was not word that could describe its horror.  I am so thankful, that Jesus, despite how we tortured Him, forgave all mankind, past, present, and future who will accept His gift of reconciliation through the Holy Spirit.  We only have to say, “Yes, Lord, I am a sinner, I know You died for me.  I am so sorry for everything I have done.  Please forgive me and be Lord of my heart and life. ”  When we sincerely accept His gift, we are changed forever.  He suffered so we wouldn’t have to.  There was no hope otherwise for any of us to ever see the Kingdom of God.  He is our only hope.  There is NO OTHER WAY to God but through Jesus Christ.

Tonight, I will watch The Passion of the Christ, take the Lord’s Supper when Jesus does, and stop the movie before the tomb opens because that…my friends…is SUNDAY MORNING!