Why is this important?

What is love anyway and why does love not “delight in evil”? Why does Paul feel the need to say this in 1Corinthians 13? Some believe it’s because he’s addressing some major sin issues in the church in Corinth. A man is even sleeping with his stepmother for goodness’ sake and brags about his freedom in it. Paul seems to want to remind us that freedom in Christ doesn’t mean engaging in sin. LOVING Jesus results in being obedient to His word. So if we claim to love Jesus, why aren’t we obedient?

I think sometimes we love Jesus in the sense that we love the way He cleanses us and makes us whole. We feel alive when He comes and touches us, and we know we can’t live apart from Him. But we don’t really believe that He knows best. I don’t know why, but it’s true. We believe IN Him, but we don’t really BELIEVE Him. We kind of live with this question toying at the back of our minds:

“Is following Him really worth giving up everything for?”

Stop and think about your answer. You know in your head that the answer is yes, but really, stop and think about it in your heart. Do we really believe Jesus is worth giving up everything for? Do we really believe the gospel is Good News? Do we really believe it’s the best thing for everyone? If we have to give up something we love in order to follow Jesus, can we really claim HE is worth it?

Can we?

Can you? In your own life, do you really feel like giving up everything for Jesus was worth it?

Until we can answer this without doubt to the deepest part of our core, I’m not sure we can truly impact the world around us. When the world asks why their lifestyle goes against His law, I have to be able to say, “Because Jesus is worth it. There is nothing better.”

We have to believe this wholeheartedly: “Take the whole world, just give me Jesus.”

I have to know the following: You can take EVERYTHING away from me. My loving husband, my kids, my house, my possessions, even my memories, my past, my hopes and dreams, but Jesus can never be taken away from me, and that is really all I need. In life, in death, Jesus is the only thing I actually need. I could have EVERYTHING else I’ve ever wanted, but I will NEVER be satisfied unless I have the Living Water that Jesus offered to the woman at the well. (John 4)

Do I really believe Jesus is the Living Water, the satisfaction for my soul? Do I drink from it daily so that I never thirst?

If I’m constantly thirsty, maybe I’m not drinking the water. If I’m not drinking the water, I can’t tell someone else how important this water is, because I really don’t believe it.

Do you see what I mean?

Maybe I can fool people, maybe I can get them to drink the water even if I don’t know where it is. But eventually, it catches up to me. Eventually I stumble from thirst and exhaustion, I never really knew the Water, and I fall away. You know what happens to some of those people I helped along the way? They see me fall, and they fall too. So maybe I can impact the world around me for a short time, but in the end, I do more damage than good. Eventually, my doubt catches up to me, and when I fall down, I drag many with me.

I don’t want to fall. I want to run this race all the way to the finish line. I don’t intend to trip, but if I do, I won’t stay down, I’ll get back up again. I won’t let evil win. I’ll press on. I’ll dust myself off and try again. (Wow, there are so many songs here.) Paul talks about running the race, training our bodies so to speak, in order to reach the goal. The goal is unity with Christ. And I can run hard and not stop because I truly believe Christ is the ultimate prize.

Do you?

What’s the Big Deal?

I am wondering why Paul felt that the word rude or inappropriate was so important to the list of love attributes. It seems like a small thing, and this week I didn’t have to think about it much, which is saying a lot, since I would tend to consider myself an inappropriate person. For instance, I don’t seem to pick up on normal social cues, which puts me in awkward situations more than I would like. I also seem to cross the line when I’m in a group setting, and just in general, I find being inappropriate quite humorous. With all of that being said, I don’t feel that I struggled this week with being rude. At least, not to your face.

I may not have said the wrong thing or acted unbecomingly, but in my heart, or to my husband, or to my close friends, I may have complained about you. I may have said something rude about you, or thought of something I wish I could tell you because you’re messing it up. I may have even said that you’re not thankful enough for me and all that I do for you. All of those things (although hidden to most) are rude and inappropriate and unbecoming. When I talk about someone, I look bad. I become a gossip and an untrustworthy, un-LOVING person. The exact opposite of a Christ-follower.

So I find myself once again at the place between “acting in love” and “being in love”. How sad would this whole campaign be if it only taught me how to act out love but not to actually love. If I’m only cross-checking my actions and how I’ve affected others, and never actually looked at my heart, what have I gained? I keep coming back to the heart. It has to come from my heart first. But how?

First and foremost, I am praying. I am asking God constantly to change my heart, mold me, shape me, to give me His love. This whole 15 weeks may be in vain if it doesn’t start with His love and grace taking shape within me.

Pride Mountain

This week has made me tired. I have been open to God showing me pride in my own life, because pride tends to blind us to itself. So this week, I was asking God to show me where I struggled with pride but didn’t know it. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I am now officially blown away. I have some serious issues. I need help. I already knew this, trust me, but this week God showed me something that I have struggled with forever. It was already there, and I’ve even seen it before, but this week, God showed me a mountain in my life.

I’m too hard on myself. I have very high standards, and I’m constantly not living up to them. Since I’ve learned a little about grace in my walk, I’ve changed my standards…for everyone else. I can now give grace to others and not desire them to live up to my standards. This was really necessary, trust me, I love so much more deeply now that I’m not afraid of everyone doing everything imperfectly.

But it isn’t ending there. I’ve been in pain this week. I’ve been exhausted. Partly because I’ve been searching and listening and open to God. But mostly because I feel like pride is so deep and so huge that I’ll never stop dealing with it. It is a huge mountain towering in front of me, I see no way through it or around it.

The good part is that God says if I have faith even as small as a mustard seed, I can tell this mountain to throw itself into the sea, and it will.

Not by my might or power, but by God’s Spirit. His will, His grace, His salvation. He isn’t just saving me from death or hell, sometimes He’s also saving me from…me.

We sing a song in our church called Centuries that has a lyric, “What can man to do me?” It’s a beautiful song about resting in God and finding peace in Him alone. As we sang it today, I realized that the “man” in that line is really me. I am my own worst enemy. I am the mountain that stops me from being who I really am. I am the mountain that keeps me from pursuing and chasing the Wild Love I so desire.

But I am also the mustard seed. I can have faith that moves the mountain through Christ in me.

My new prayer is from another song we sing by Ember Days, “Oh, move the mountains, oh, part the seas, Lord. You healed the lepers when they called Your name. You heal the broken, so will You heal me?”

I don’t know how to walk in grace towards myself. It’s something my pride won’t allow me to do, because I like being right and I like being ‘above reproach’ and I want to live to a higher calling because I think that’s what God wants for me. But when I live this way based on pride, I’m missing the entire point of God’s love and grace to His creation.

It’s also not working. This is another realization that has really depressed me this week. Being really hard on myself, beating myself up, and constantly trying to force myself to be better is not actually working. Sure, I can bite my tongue once in a while, but I still say stupid things that hurt people. Sure, I can be a little more patient when there’s a stupid driver in front of me, but I still burst out at my children sometimes. Sure, I can make a list of ways that I’m thankful, but I still analyze my actions constantly and come out six feet under. I don’t want to live like that anymore, because it’s not helping me be a better person. I have to go back to the beginning: live in love, not fear. I have to believe that the more I love God and the more I understand His love for me, the better person I will become. “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all else will be added to you.” If my desire is to do what God wants me to do, and to understand His love, and to pursue Him, He can help me to see the truth about myself, and to accept who I am - not trying to be more than I am, but resting in the fact that He Is.

We heard at church today that some mountains simply crumble and fall into the sea, but some mountains erode slowly during different storms. I’ve seen God erode my mountain during a storm, but I find myself building it back up again. After all, it’s familiar, it’s safe, I’m not sure what will happen when I can’t hide behind it anymore. But I think I am now determined to let the storms come and erode this mountain. I’m determined to destroy the tools and materials that help me build it back up. I’m determined to believe so strongly in God’s power and grace that He can remove this mountain. Even Pride Mountain.

The Opposite of Pride (Part 2)

Humility. For me, it may be one of the most complicated subjects in the bible. We know we need to be humble. But somewhere along the lines, we settle for something that looks and feels like humility, but really is not.  Part of it is the “victim” mentality that you may have read in the last post written by Heather Slagsvol. She gives such great insight into this “false humility” and I’m so grateful for her thoughts. It’s easier to seem humble when we’re constantly the victim, when bad things are always happening “to” us by others in all their pride and selfishness.

But then there’s this other part: the people who actually see themselves as unworthy or having no value. This is NOT true humility. But it’s certainly a tricky one because Philippians talks about Jesus’s humility which is SO CLOSE to ours that it’s no wonder we get it confused.

Here’s what it says:
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Jesus is kind of looking at Himself as less than He really is here, right? He’s thinking about others as more important than himself (He’s Jesus, so this is obviously not true in the grand scheme of things). He’s not looking at Himself as equal to God (even though He was God in the flesh), but He emptied Himself (He became nothing) even to the point of being a lowly bond-servant (or slave). This is so incredible, because in that time a bond-servant was someone who was indebted to their master. Jesus literally became a slave to all of those that He loved.

This is a struggle for us, so imagine the struggle it was for the Jews, who were waiting for a mighty and powerful King to come and set everything right. Instead, Jesus came as a slave to all mankind, taking on their debts as His own and giving them everything, even to the point of death.

This is humility.

Doesn’t it seem like if we just keep looking down on ourselves and saying we’re nothing and constantly serving that we will be truly humble?

Somehow, this doesn’t add up. There’s more here than just the actions of humility. We also have to look at His heart. Jesus did all of these things because HE TRULY LOVED. He was lowly and humble because He knew the bigger picture, He knew what He had to do to draw us back to Him.

When I’m “humble”, looking down on myself, or wearing myself thin in my servitude to others, I have to look at myself and ask, “WHY?” Why am I doing it? Am I doing this so that others will lift me back up? Am I doing it to prove my worth by my work or deeds? Am I doing it because I want others to love me? Am I doing it because it’s the right thing to do?

It must be more than that. My humility, my laying down my life for someone else, my thinking of others as more highly than myself, MUST originate in love. It must NOT originate from sense of duty or thoughts of “I SHOULD”. True humility can only work because I honestly and fully LOVE the Savior of my soul and all the other children He’s created. If my heart begins with love, I believe I can be truly humble, not just walking in some ‘substitute humility’ that exhausts and cripples me.

How can God be called ‘Jealous’?

The bible definitely talks about envy and jealousy in the way we understand it. Psalms and Proverbs are constantly telling us to not envy the wicked and their riches. Ecclesiastes talks about our envy of others causing us to strive in achievement. There is no mystery about what this word means when it was translated from Greek to English. So how can the bible say “Love is not jealous”, and yet say that God’s own name is ‘Jealous’ (Exodus 34:14)? Not to mention the hundreds of verses where it says ‘God is jealous’. The bible even mentions a few times when God provokes jealousy in His people because He wants their hearts to turn back to Him. Even Paul writes to the Christians that he wishes he could make the Israelites jealous so that they would want Jesus. Why would God want us to be jealous, but then say, “love is not jealous”. Isn’t God Himself Love?

Confusing. But I think there’s so much here we can learn. I think it would help if we looked at it the way we look at…sex. (Sorry, PG-13, but hear me out.) There is healthy sex and there is unhealthy sex. Healthy sex brings life and healing and joy. Unhealthy sex brings pain and longing and damage. There seems to be a “healthy jealousy” in the bible. When God is jealous, His desire is for us (mostly after we’ve turned away from Him.) He is angry with His bride, Israel, because she’s broken her covenant with Him and whored around to whoever would sleep with her. His jealousy is a healthy jealousy that invokes Him to fight for His bride. What woman doesn’t want to be chased by the man they love?

I recently watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 with my kids and was blown away by a scene where the main character (Hiccup) finds his long lost mother (thought to be killed by a dragon 20 years ago) reuniting with his father, the ruler of the Vikings. He’s a big, scary, stubborn kind of guy. When he sees his wife for the first time in a long time, he is serious, yet full of emotion, and he is…gentle. He loves her, and welcomes her back to be his wife again even though she wandered off without looking back.

I love this scene because it reminds me of God’s heart for us. It doesn’t matter what we do. He always desires for us to come back to Him. He just keeps trying, keeps waiting, in patience (week one), and kindness (week two), for us to love Him back. He is jealous for us, because we are His bride, and He’s supposed to be jealous for His bride, just like we are supposed to be jealous for Him.  This is healthy jealousy.

So what is unhealthy jealousy? 1 Corinthians is saying that love is not jealous for the wrong things. Love isn’t jealous for a nice house, a good job, a better personality, a smaller nose, quiet children, or a helpful husband. Love is jealous only for the Lover of our souls! Our jealousy can not be aimed at anything but His heart and loving Him. That is what Paul meant when he wrote “Love is not jealous”. He means love doesn’t look around and see all the things it doesn’t have.  Love is being so committed and connected to God’s heart, that we just want more of Him, and all the other stuff we want fades away into the distance, because Love realizes nothing comes close to the Lover's embrace.

Week Three: Love is not Envious

I typically don’t envy other people. I don’t see the point. Being jealous doesn’t bring me any closer to having what someone else has, it only makes me feel bad about myself, so what’s the point?  But just because I don’t normally get jealous of other people, doesn’t mean I don’t need to improve in this area. You know what the opposite of not being jealous of others would be? (Other than being happy for them of course.) Being thankful for what I have. That would pretty much cure our envy most of the time, wouldn’t it?

My husband and I bought this house that needed a ton of work. When we first looked at it, we saw what it could be. It needed paint, new bathrooms, floors, some new walls, new appliances, and the entire outside of the house, roof, and yard needed a complete overhaul. What were we thinking? We saw the potential, and we fell in love with it, so we bought it. We’ve done a TON of work, and it’s a  decent house now. But do you know what I see when I look at it? All the stuff we haven’t done yet. That’s all I see. I can’t enjoy my yard, because all I see is the pile of junk there, the weeds that aren’t getting cut over there, the overgrowth of whatever that is over there. There is so much work to do! I’m not exactly envying someone else, but I’m not at all being thankful for what I have. What if when I looked at my yard, I saw how much beauty we’ve sowed, how much transformation has taken place?

I know this is slightly different from envy, but I think it will help us to see how we can be loving in this area. We think the opposite of being envious is saying “oh that’s so great that they get to do that (poor me I can’t) but I’m not going to focus on me, I’m going to be happy for them!" I’m not sure that’s going to work. I think what will work is saying “oh that’s so great that they get to do that. I’m so thankful that I have this or that I get to do that.”

Does that make sense? We’re kind of killing two birds with one stone. I know there isn’t a ‘Love is Thankful’ week, but don’t you think thankfulness will remove all our envy? 

Maybe I can apply this to more than just my yard. Maybe I should apply it to the people in my life who aren’t what I want them to be. (CAUTION, DANGER ZONE.)

Don’t we look at people the same way I look at my yard?  There’s just so much to do. He has such a long way to go... If my son was just more like that... If my daughter was just less like this... If my husband would just treat me like this...

Isn’t that a dangerous place to be in? Somehow this feels like envy to me. Wishing people were something they’re not. Instead of being thankful for the things they are. Wow. Imagine if I lived like that!

Imagine if you had a mental list of all the ways your husband blesses you and is wonderful that you could tell yourself when he does that thing that he always does that you can’t stand!  Don’t you think it would help your heart to love him more?

I’m fortunate to have an amazing husband, so maybe it’s not fair. But he still has his moments. He has a lot of them.  There are things I think he should do, ways I think he should change. But you know what? I bet he could say the same for me. (AH!) And I DO NOT want to hear those things. You know what I hope he does when he’s mad at me? I hope he remembers all the good things about me. I hope he thinks about how I pick up his dirty socks off the floor by the laundry basket EVERY DAY, and I hope he remembers that I bring him his favorite coffee when he’s at work, or that I’m fun to be with. I hope he thinks of all those things when I do something stupid, because when I think about it, I do A LOT of stupid things.

I hope he doesn’t get jealous when he sees some other perfect wife. That would be crazy. And totally unloving. So it’s not okay for me either. 

Since this week is a Love-is-NOT-something week, and since just trying to NOT do something is really hard, I think our practice this week should be in thankfulness.  

And don't forget to be patient and serviceably kind, too.

Love Is Serving

I’m trying to think of how I can serve more, or how I can be more of a servant. I’m not coming up with much that will actually work. Oh, I have all kinds of ideas on how to improve and serve more. But do you know what I don’t have? Time. Volunteer at a soup kitchen? That’s a great way to serve. But I work all day and have my kids alone all weekend. Cook someone a meal? Yeah, that would be great if I wasn’t going on vacation next week. Clean a new mom’s house? Sure, sure, but that will take too long so I’ll just hire someone else to do it.

It’s not that I don’t know HOW to serve, I just don’t know how to FIND THE TIME to serve. Being kind is super hard.

Don’t think too poorly of me. Mostly, I don’t have time to serve because I’m already serving. I’m constantly serving my kids and my husband. I try to watch my friend’s kids when they need help. I’m always having people over for dinner to serve them. I try to clean up when I’m at people’s houses (I learned this from a good friend who always cleans up at my house when she’s over and wow is it a blessing!) I visit friends who need a visitor. I write to people who may need an encouraging word. I pray. I feel like I do try to serve others. But there are so many people who serve a lot more than I do! I know I’m not doing as well as I could.

I think the "serving" that God wants from us in LOVE here is more precise. I think it’s listening, serving the person in need. I can’t think of any story to show “kindness” and “serving” better than The Good Samaritan.  We know the story… a guy gets robbed and beat up and left on the side of the road to die. A bunch of good religious people see him and leave him there. But then this Samaritan (the guy's enemy) helps him, nurses him back to health and makes sure he’s okay.  That is the kindness found in 1 Corinthians 13:4. 

Am I like the Good Samaritan?

No, I’m just not. I generally leave others to fend for themselves. In fact, in emergency situations, I freeze. I am 90% sure that if one of my kids was about to fall off a cliff, I would instantly freeze instead of diving to save him. I know that sounds awful, but it’s probably true. When I see a bad situation unfolding, I go blank. Sometimes I pass out. (Hopefully if something like this ever happened, my husband would be around, because he is the total opposite! He instinctively runs TOWARD danger and saves everyone. HERO!)

But since Christ is in me, and I’m being made new with the renewing of my mind (Rom. 12:2), then I should be changing. I should be more of a servant. I should see when people need help, and be able to help them.  That’s what Christ did. So if I’m taking on the nature of my Father and His Son a little more every day, then surely I can lend a helping hand to someone in need (in a timely fashion.)

It’s not just about danger and near-death experiences. There’s another point to be made from The Good Samaritan. These guys were enemies. They were from opposite sides of the track so to speak. Are there people in my life who need my help that I don’t want to help? Yeah *sigh*. Kindness in LOVE would help them.

Wouldn’t it be great, if we loved our enemies like Jesus said we should? “Serviceable kindness” would be a great place to start.

Am I really going to be more patient?

Two nights ago, the first night of the Campaign and Day One of “Love is Patient”, I had one of those nights with my kids. Or I should say, ‘my kids had one of those nights.’ I have twin 5-year-old boys. That sentence in itself is supposed to tell a whole story, but you have to read between the lines.  In any case, they’ve never been good sleepers.  They were up every night for at least the first three years. After that, once in a while we’d have a night where we actually slept through until morning.  It very slowly got better, and now we’re mostly sleeping straight through the night.  Surprisingly, this did not come in handy for my practice in patience.  I have gotten used to sleeping all night! So let’s just say I was…not happy to be woken up 6 times out of the blue.  

Sometimes, when my husband isn't working, I can pretend I’m asleep so I don’t have to get up. He does it too, so I don’t feel bad.  It’s okay, I know when I can’t handle something.  I know when I’m not going to have the patience that I need to help them. But when I’m alone, I don’t have a way out. If I can’t find the patience, I yell. I cry. “Why are you doing this to me?!” might come out of my mouth in there somewhere. I know it sounds childish, but when you’re desperate and honestly just need sleep, strange things happen to you.

I had to stop and think. I couldn’t figure out why my son was so upset. I asked him. He said he didn’t know. Of course he doesn’t, he’s 5.  This isn’t a parenting blog, so let’s just assume I already tried everything that could be suggested. Nothing was working. And my patience was wearing thin. In fact, it was gone.  Then I got mad. I got mad at my little, precious 5 year old because he was crying for no reason in the middle of the night.

“God!” I cried out, “I have no patience! Give me your patience!” I was desperate. How can I teach others to be patient when I literally couldn’t find a string of it left in me? Jesus is in there somewhere. He said He lives in me. So I’m going to tap into that. I’m going to need some patience when I literally don’t have it. I’m coming up short. But with Him, all things are possible. He can even teach this old dog some new tricks.

Did I instantly feel better? No. I still felt helpless. I still really didn’t know what to do. But I asked God to come, to fill me up with His Spirit and give me the things I did not have.  I went back to my son’s room and spoke quietly to him for the third time. I told him I loved him. I don’t even remember what happened after that. But somehow the night quieted down and we all got some peaceful sleep.

I’m not sure I learned how to be more patient that night. But I learned to stop and cry out to God when I needed His help. I think for Day One, maybe that’s a good start.

LOVE - The 15 Weeks to LOVE Challenge

Yesterday, to kick off the campaign, I gave a teaching about LOVE at Family of Hope Church in Saugerties, NY (check out the video if you’d like to hear it. Here is a link in case you can't see the video above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfnE68bMp8s&feature=em-uploademail).  This is my home church, and I’m so happy to be sharing this campaign with my family here and teaming up with them to make it a success.  I’m also encouraged by other friends and family who are joining the campaign in their lives, and in their churches. Just think if we ALL grasped the importance of learning to really love! We could actually change the voice in our nation and start showing people God’s love!

I’m super excited! But I am also a little embarrassed that I don’t already love like I was supposed to. I think there comes a little repentance in the beginning. Realizing how short I’ve fallen from what God wanted for me. But here’s the beautiful part: we don’t need to sit and feel condemned.

We sing a song in our church that says “Death to the past it’s gone. Here’s to a new beginning.”  Let’s start fresh in love. You may already be loving WAY more than me, but I know we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. (I know this because the bible says it.) So just because you’re a lot better at loving than me doesn’t mean you’re good at it compared to let’s say…Jesus.

I’ve been told this idea is radical. It’s a little out there. And I get it. But it really shouldn’t be. Jesus was radical, right? Jesus was a little out there. But we don’t call ourselves ‘Christians’ for no reason. It has a purpose. It’s because we’re Christ-followers. We’re Jesus followers. And right now, we need to think a little outside the box to undo some of the damage we’ve done and move in the right direction.

Check out the teaching and consider joining us. Ask your friends or co-workers or your church to join us as well. If we work together, I really believe we can make a difference in this world!