Love (permanence of love)

Part 3 of 3. Two posts in one this is a first for me lol.
The fact is love is here to stay; it is not going to go away. Paul is trying to explain to us that other things will pass away. He starts in verse 8, with love will never fail or as some version say never ends. He then talks about things which will end gifts,and knowledge. The problem the Corinthians had was that because they spoke in tongues they thought they had arrived. But Paul tries to teach them of their spiritual immaturity. He tries to show them when they get to heaven, when they are with Christ any knowledge, any great thing wont matter, but love will always remain. Lets make Christ love our spiritual necessity because it will be our spiritual permanence.

The great things we do for God, or the knowledge, or abilities God has blessed us with our good. But they are like outside lights. What do I mean by this? I mean in the sense that while we are here in this world they are great and they bring glory to God they light up the darkness, but when Christ returns it will be day and the lights will be pointless In fact you will not be able to even see that the lights are on. In the full light of the sun, the lights are not necessary.

Love is like a light inside the house, which will always be noticeable, and you will always be able to see it. For all eternity we going to basking in the Love of the father, is this not fantastic. Paul finishes with this fact faith, hope and love remain. You know you can have hope without love and you can have faith without love but you if you have love you have faith and hope.

Let us strive on in thankfulness and praise to our God. Lets live a life of love to honour and serve him and one another. That we may know and enjoy the love he has given to us right now today and for all eternity.

Love (character of love)

Part 2 of 3.
Now looking at the verses 4-8. Paul shows us the quality of love and what love does. It is interesting how Paul uses more negatives of what love isn’t than what love is. This is to put strong emphasis on what it does not do, to show us the sins in our lives. When we read these verses we so often feel warm and emotional, as so often we hear these words in weddings and sit there thinking love is great. The actual reality is the passage shows us love is not just an emotion, it is an action. Agape love, which is the love Paul is referring to, means a love where we seek the best for an individual or person no matter what we gain out of it ourselves. This is about what we do to show love.

Love is patient, it is prepared to wait, it puts up with others inefficiencies. It is kind, friendly, generous, it seeks to help people, say kind words to people. Are you one of those people who seeks to be kind to others? Love does not envy, it is not defined by competition, and rivalry. Can we be effective Christians if we allow rivalry and jealousy to come into our lives? The answer is no we can’t; we are not at peace with each other. So often we forget we are on the same team, we are on God’s team! Love does not boast and is not proud; it does not bring attention to itself. Love is not rude. How often are we rude about each other and so often behind each other backs? Love does not gossip. As Christians we are often the worse for gossiping about one another. It does not anger easily, it does not keep record of others wrong doing, nor does not hold it against them. It rejoices in the truth. The truth is when God's will is done no matter where or what.

It goes on to say it is not self seeking. I really believe this is a sin in our lives which goes so unnoticed. It is something God has been teaching me. So often we think we are ok because we think about others or do things for others. But self-centeredness is deeper than that. I so often think about me and what I am going to do in my life, what can I get out of this opportunity this friendship, this relationship. So often we have friends because they make us feel good about ourselves. We are so often guilty in thinking me me me. Have we ever thought if I kiss my girlfriend or boyfriend then I feel secure, I get the emotion I need. I have come to realise in the relationship I am in, that actually showing my girlfriend love I need to not be trying to get what I can out the relationship, but what I can put in. I want to do this God way, the true way of love, to honour God and Esther (my girlfriend).

How can we counter this and live in love. Firstly look at the cross, and see what Jesus did for us, that was not selfish, that was love in it's purest. His life was perfect he lived to serve others and God. Jesus is our greatest example. Let us see what we can do for one another and how we can support, and focus our lives on the gospel. You know serving God means serving others and serving others means serving God. Is God not great in this, in his kindness, mercy and his wonderful grace he has allowed it to be the same thing in one.

Does not the character of love show how superficial so many love songs we listen too are? They tell us about an emotion how you can fall in and out of love, but this is not what our bible tells us. When we read this we should think of real human beings, not someone running slowly on a beach. We should not just think of people we like but also people who annoy us. Do you ever ask God are you sure you are calling them? How often have you asked that? I know I have. You know so often we find it so hard to love one another. People will let you down and we will get hurt, because we are a fallen people. We need to seek to live a life of love, and if we look at our lives and if we see a lack of love, then we need to pray for Gods forgiveness and that he will help us love one another. You know Jesus call us to serve like he did with his disciples he washed their feet. Jesus lived a life of serving others. Let us look this week at the different aspects of love and apply them to our lives.

Love (necessity of love)

Part 1 of 3
I recently been reading a book called Knowing God by J I Packer and came across a chapter about the Love of God. It got me thinking about Paul's letter to the Corinthians and especially Chapter 13 the one we hear so often at weddings. I read this chapter and three things stood out to me the first and the one we are going to look at today is the necessity of Love for the Christian. I also noticed the character of love and the permanence of love which we will look at a later date.

Our Bibles tell us God is Love; not God has love, but is Love. So without God in our lives we cannot truly understand or experience true love. The purpose of the Gospel is about how God has come down to rescue and save unworthy sinners, not how man can earn his way to God. 1 Corinthians 13 points us to the cross just while we read these words remember what God has, done for us. The gospel is what we glory in right now today. So if we are gospel centered people we should use this description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 as a reminder of God love towards us in Jesus. So whenever you read this passage instead of starting with self evaluation, start with thankful praise and worship. love is patient, love is kind hasn’t God been patient with us, hasn’t he been active in his kindness. Jesus our saviour humbled himself even to death on the cross. We could continue through all of what love is and see what incredible graceful, and loving God we have. Jesus took our place, suffering, the anguish, and the pain all for me, and all for you. So we no longer have to live in guilt but live in love. You know when we read this passage we know this is not even a possibility without the gospel of Jesus Christ which has set us free. We can only love like this because God first loved us.

The passage is 1 Corinthians ch12 v31- ch13 v 3.

In verses 1-3 Paul shows the necessity of love and the importance of love in a Christian life. Paul is telling us it is essential, that love is not an optional extra. It goes on to say if my life is not characterised by love then I am just an empty noise I am a pointless symbol. Paul in the first 3 verses is writing about some amazing things, great faith, being able to understand all mysteries, and then he goes on to use exaggerated examples to push home his point. It does not matter how incredible your life has been or what you can do, if you lack love you are nothing. What a statement I am nothing if I do not have love.

What is the most important thing you have to do this week? Many of us have busy lives, with projects, work, university, social lives, and family. The most important thing we are actually going to do this week is breathe. It is kind of a trick question but we all agree that breathing oxygen is right up there as the most important things we have to do. If we forget to breathe it does not matter how important your schedule is you will be dead very soon. In the same sense Paul is saying the same thing, living a life of love is like breathing for a Christian. If you truly know God you are living a life of love, and if you are not living a life of love then you are showing no evidence of truly being alive in Christ.

Consider what the bible teaches about the necessity of love in Mathew 22 when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is he said "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind and continued to say also; love your neighbour as yourself". In 1 John it also says "anyone who does not love, does not know God because God is love".

I have often found we use our abilities or knowledge, good works to point at and hide the fact we are missing love in our lives. I am not saying these things are not good but we should stop using these things to hide the fact there is a lack of love in our lives. We could say if I attend church every Sunday and read my bible every day, I also give to charity, and once a week I cook for my friend then I feel like I am good. We tell ourselves we are covered I have done enough, you notice all these things are good and right but we cannot participate in these things without examining whether we are living a life of love. Are our good deeds shaped or flowing from a love for God and one another.

So often we differ on our views on the spiritual gifts but what Paul is saying here you cannot be a Christian and not love. This is certainly a challenge in my own life, I hope and pray that it will challenge you also. Lets pray Gods love shines out of each one of us.

Worship

Its been a long time since I was last writing on here but after much persuasion off my girlfriend (Esther) i am back.

Recently I have been looking at the importance of worship. What does worship mean to us today as Christians. I often think we have many misconceptions of what worship really is. We often think of a Sunday morning when we are in church or the latest album from Hillsong. While these things are certainly factors or part of worship, actually worship is so much more.

The bible tells us that worship is essential to us as Christians, it is not something done only once a week, or when we put the CD on in the car, it is the main purpose of our lives as Christians. Worship is living to honour and praise our God. We can do this in a number of ways from praying, singing to the way we live and serve others. The bible also tells us how we should worship in John Ch 4 v 23-24 Jesus tells us we should worship in spirit and truth.

Worship is an attitude of spirit. Since it’s an internal, individual action, it should be done all the time in our lives regardless of what our situation or position is. Only Christians can truly worship as we must do this “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24). The only way we can do this is if we have received Jesus into our lives. Once we have become a Christian we receive God spirit in our lives. It makes sense if you think about it without God Spirit in us how can we worship in the Spirit. Also God is the truth so without God's Spirit we are unable to worship our God truly. Worship should be God centred because that is what true worship is.

Why should we want to worship, well firstly and quite simply because it was what we have been made for. God made us so we would be able to communicate with him, we broke that by sin, so we worship God to communicate with him to honor and praise him. Secondly because of the amazing gift of salvation. How can we ever thank God that he loved us so much that he sent his only son Jesus to die for us. Jesus took our place and now we are free. We can now experience God in very real way through his word (the bible) and his Spirit which he has given to us. This is something in which we should be constantly grateful for, thanking and praising God for loving me so much. Thirdly we should worship God because we can, sometimes it will not be easy, while other times we will have plenty of things to be thankful for.

Worship is not about us having a good time it is completely about God. That is not to say God will not bless us in our worship, in fact our God is so good and loving often worshiping him is great and we feel brilliant. There will be times though when its hard maybe when we are suffering or feel alone, but still we should say I will worship and praise my God. Let us remember that our God is Creator of all things, the Savior of the World and the one who provides for us and keeps us safe. Let us thank him and worship him in all things.

Lent

We are now arrived at that time of year again, the time when people people give something up. It interesting the origins of Lent are from when Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days. When we read this story we find out how Satan tried to tempt Jesus. Lent is about a time of giving something up for God, to focus and serve him. This is a fantastic way of focusing on your relationship with God, and bringing our Lord glory, honor and praise.

Religious
The first concern with lent is that it becomes a religious, legalistic event which is about doing lent for the sake of it. We actually become like the pharisees in that we are doing it because we think we have to, so we can earn respect, and people will notice what we are doing. One easy way to tell if we are doing this, is that our lent is very public and that we are always telling people about how religious and good we are finding it. It becomes about how lent makes us feel good about ourselves and how we are doing this so much better than anyone else. Have you ever met that person who says well I am doing lent why aren't you. Lent does not need a set day we can give something up for Christ anytime of the year.

Sin
The Second concern is that we give up a sin in our life. You might say well this is a good thing surely. The two main problems often with this is that we try and do this in our own power and do a deal with God. I will not lust or not swear we tell God and actually as sinful fallen people we cannot make that promise with God. The only way we can go about this is going back to God and asking him to transform our hearts. The second problem with this is we so often try to give things up for lent we should not be doing full stop. Some of our principles we bring in for lent should be part of our everyday lives. We cannot use lent as an excuse to be so called good Christians, part of our everyday lives is about living and serving Christ. Lets not use lent to serve and obey God for only certain periods in the year but everyday.

Giving up
The third concern is that we focus the whole of lent on what we are giving up. It can become very self focused or works focused. We end up looking inward so much because we are trying to better ourself as a person. That in itself is not a bad thing but the purpose of lent is to give something up so we can focus and bring glory to our Saviour and Lord. We become one those people who are so determined not to eat chocolate it becomes all about the chocolate and not at all about Christ. It can so easily become about what we are giving up and actually it not about that at all.

What to do
How do we change this well look at your Saviour and Lord, remember giving something up is so we can honor and praise him, not so we can win holy points. Look at the cross again and realise without Christ we are hopeless sinners. We need God to transform us and we can only go about lent effectively if we are truly living and allowing God to work through us. Lent remember is not about us it is about serving our Father who loved us and sent Jesus to die for us. Lets continue to serve him daily and remember what lent is truly about.

The Cross Centred Lives (The Transformed Heart)

Living breathing, the gospel is what Transformed Hearts is all about. It is never forgetting, always putting the gospel and the work of Christ first in our lives. The cross reminds us that Jesus died for us so we might go free. The gospel is the greatest news anyone could ever receive it is liberating, freeing and is totally transforming. In Romans 6 v 10-11 it tells us of this transformation ' The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.It tells us that we are no longer alive to sin and our old way of life but alive in Christ and the truth.

The gospel is our way back to communion with God (a true relationship). In fact we actually received God into our lives in the form of the Holy Spirit. This is astonishing an amazing grace gift from God, a gift we have been given but do not deserve. We have God living in us quite literally so how can we not be changed. God is love and if he is living in us then the character of God should shine through us. This is not always easy but only through the power of the spirit and our obedience to God's word the bible can we live the lives God intended us to. The fact is through faith in my Lord Jesus I am able to say I am free and have a home in heaven. That in itself is one of the greatest facts I could ever know, if you are saved by grace rejoice with me this week that Jesus is your Saviour. If you are not saved, realise you are a sinner in God sight ask him to forgive you and that he will come into your life and transform your heart.

The next few weeks we are going to look at what a transformed heart looks like. We will be looking at love, faith, forgiveness, and living and serving God in the truth. Hope you enjoyed todays blog,take 5 minutes just to watch this video on the cross.

The Room

This blog is about a dream that I found really helpful, an image of God's incredible Grace. We should feel convicted of our sins and our failings but because of Jesus we no longer have to live in guilt as God in his kindness and mercy has forgiven us of our sins. This is just a small image of Gods amazing love for us, hope you enjoy it.

In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I found myself in the room. There were no distinguishing features except for the one wall covered with small index card files. They were like the ones in libraries that list titles by author or subject in alphabetical order. But these files, which stretched from floor to ceiling and seemingly endlessly in either direction, had very different headings.

As I drew near the wall of files, the first to catch my attention was one that read "Girls I Have Liked." I opened it and began flipping through the cards. I quickly shut it, shocked to realize that I recognized the names written on each one.

And then without being told, I knew exactly where I was. This lifeless room with its small files was a crude catalog system for my life. Here were written the actions of my every moment, big and small, in a detail my memory couldn't match.

A sense of wonder and curiosity, coupled with horror, stirred within me as I began randomly opening files and exploring their content. Some brought joy and sweet memories; others a sense of shame and regret so intense that I would look over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching. A file named "Friends" was next to one marked "Friends I Have Betrayed".

The titles ranged from the mundane to the outright weird. "Books I Have Read," "Lies I Have Told," "Comfort I Have Given," "Jokes I Have Laughed At." Some were almost hilarious in their exactness: "Things I've Yelled At My Brothers." Others I couldn't laugh at: "Things I Have Done In My Anger," "Things I Have Muttered Under My Breath At My Parents." I never ceased to be surprised by the contents. Often there were many more cards than I expected. Sometimes fewer than I hoped.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the life I had lived. Could it be possible that I had the time in my years to write each of these thousands or even millions of cards? But each card confirmed this truth. Each was written in my own handwriting. Each signed with my signature.

When I pulled out the file marked "Songs I Have Listened To," I realized the files grew to contain their contents. The cards were packed tightly, and yet after two or three yards, I hadn't found the end of the file. I shut it, shamed, not so much by the quality of music, but more by the vast amount of time I knew that file represented. When I came to a file marked "Lustful Thoughts," I felt a chill run through my body. I pulled the file out only an inch, not willing to test its size, and drew out a card. I shuddered at its detailed content. I felt sick to think that such a moment had been recorded.

An almost animal rage broke on me. One thought dominated my mind: "No one must ever see these cards! No one must ever see this room! I have to destroy them!" In insane frenzy I yanked the file out. Its size didn't mattered now. I had to empty it and burn the cards. But as I took it at one end and began pounding it on the floor, I could not dislodge a single card. I became desperate and pulled out a card, only to find it as strong as steel when I tried to tear it.

Defeated and utterly helpless, I returned the file to its slot. Leaning my forehead against the wall, I let out a long, self-pitying sigh. And then I saw it. The title bore "People I Have Shared With About My Belief In Jesus." The handle was brighter than those around it, newer, almost unused. I pulled on its handle and a small box fell into my hands. I could count the cards it contained on one hand.

And then the tears came. I began to weep. Sobs so deep that the hurt started in my stomach and shook through me. I fell on my knees and cried. I cried out of shame, from the overwhelming shame of it all. The rows of file shelves swirled in my tear-filled eyes. No one must ever, ever know of this room. I must lock it up and hide the key. But then as I pushed away the tears, I saw Him. No, please not Him. Not here. Oh, anyone but Jesus.

I watched helplessly as He began to open the files and read the cards. I couldn't bear to watch His response. And in the moments I could bring myself to look at His face, I saw a sorrow deeper than my own. He seemed to intuitively go to the worst boxes. Why did He have to read every one?

Finally He turned and looked at me from across the room. He looked at me with pity in His eyes. But this was a pity that didn't anger me. I dropped my head, covered my face with my hands and began to cry again. He walked over and put His arm around me. He could have said so many things. But He didn't say a word. He just cried with me.

Then He got up and walked back to the wall of files. Starting at one end of the room, He took out a file and, one by one, began to sign His name over mine on each card.

"No!" I shouted rushing to Him. All I could find to say was "No, no," as I pulled the card from Him. His name shouldn't be on these cards. But there it was, written in red so rich, so dark, so alive. The name of Jesus covered mine. It was written with His blood. He gently took the card back. He smiled a sad smile and began to sign the cards. I don't think I'll ever understand how He did it so quickly, but the next instant it seemed I heard Him close the last file and walk back to my side. He placed His hand on my shoulder and said, "It is finished!" I stood up, and He led me out of the room. There was no lock on its door. There were still cards to be written.

By Joshua Harris. Originally published in New Attitude Magazine © Copyright New Attitude 1995