Hey Jude

Jude 1-2 (CEB) Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James.

To those who are called, loved by God the Father and kept safe by Jesus Christ.

May you have more and more mercy, peace, and love.

 

                Today we begin a very short series on the New Testament Letter of Jude (pronounced “Ju-dah”). Jude was one of the earthly brothers of Jesus, although it must be noted that Jude did not believe Jesus was the Messiah until after Jesus died.  Eventually though, Jude becomes a prominent Christian leader, particularly among Jews who have become Christians.  This letter is one that Jude wrote to one of the communities he had served, though we are not sure of the specific community. 

                Jude is not widely read in Christian circles even today, probably because he has many strange references to angels and the devil that are not found anywhere in the current Old and New Testaments of Scripture.  We’ll talk more about that next time, but for now, we’ll note that at the time of Jude’s writing this letter, the texts he references were commonly read texts in the Jewish community.  Some of them are still part of the Jewish scriptures.

                Today though, let’s simply hear the charge Jude makes to his readers in the opening to his letter:

                “May you have more and more mercy, peace, and love.”

Jude’s hope and expectation for those he leads is that they are growing in peace, love, and mercy. This forms the basis for the purpose of the letter which we will talk more about next time, but let simply hear for ourselves the charge on it’s own right now. 

                “May you have more and more mercy, peace, and love.”

                Think about your long-term relationships (family of origin, spouse, children, grandchildren, friends etc).  Now, think about the character of those relationships in the past.  Go back a year, two years, or more and recall the level of peace, love, and mercy in your part of the relationship back then.  Obviously, we have no control over how others behave, but how did you exercise these virtues in these relationships in the past? Now think about how you behave towards them currently.  As you compare the past with the present, would you say that you have more peace, love, and mercy now or less?

                One of the core assumptions of the Christian faith is that following Jesus produces a character transformation.  We exhibit more and more of the character of Christ in how we live and relate to others.  Jude’s expectation and hope is one we should take seriously and think about often.  How are we growing in the ways we live out our faith in our daily actions?

Questions:  Review the questions above.

 

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, help us see how we have grown (or not grown) in our faith in the recent past.  Show us our opportunities to grow right now.  Make us more and more people of mercy, love, and understanding. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the many victims of several mass shootings over the holiday weekend.

 

Song:  What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding – Taylor Momsen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48glZCdj4Rc   

Waiting for the Weather to Change

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called;  one Lord, one faith, one baptism;  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.                       Ephesians 4:1-6

 

I’ve heard it said about the weather in Florida, if you don’t like it, just wait a couple of hours; it will change.  Having patience is a little bit like waiting for the weather to change.  In moments of unpleasantness in our relationships, it’s easy to let the stress of the moment get the best of us.  We can say things we don’t mean, conjure up all kinds of horrible stories about the other person, or even do things that we will later regret.  Paul, writing to people in Ephesus, encourages them in such times to go deeper; “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

This sounds great but really, how do we do this.  I have to confess that I’m no expert.  I struggle with this.  However, Paul gives us some clues.  First, he says be humble and gentle.   This is a predisposition.  In other words, it involves a decision beforehand to act humbly and gently.  I need to stress the beforehand part.  Before the heated moment comes, it has to be already decided that, when that moment comes, remaining humble and gentle is the plan.  Otherwise, the tendency will be not to act, but to react.  This is not easy by any means, but without a pre-decided course of action, bad reactions are more probable.

The second part of what Paul says is, “be patient, bearing with one another in love” This is to remember the goal of our relationships.  We are here to love God and love people.  we can so easily forget that in the midst of a conflict.  Getting our way or proving ourselves right becomes the goal.  When that happens, love is sacrificed.  If we can keep our focus on love as the ultimate goal, we can then be more patient is trying to work toward a solution in the present issue.  Patience grows out of a commitment to love.  In fact, exercising patience is part of what love does (“love is patient,” 1 Cor 13). 

So two practices to work on today: (1) deciding in advance of a difficult encounter that we will be humble and gentle and (2) keeping love the primary goal.  Give it a go.

 

Prayer:  God, help us learn humility and gentleness in our interactions with each other.  Help us be patient with each other as you have been patient with us.  Help us keep love the goal. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those with Covid-19 and their families.

 

Song:  Let it Be Love – Lady Antebellum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQB-BQn6EJ4

What Literally Holds Us Together

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.                         Colossians 1:15-17

 

Today is the last day of talking about love, so it seems appropriate to simply lift up how Love in every way possible holds us together.  I was writing in my journal today (which I haven’t done in a while) and these thoughts came to me:

“Having people to love keeps me going even when I want to quit.  Having people who love me has lifted me out of my lowest moments.  I am caught up in a web of love that has begun to be cast at least a couple thousand years ago.  My family of origin, my current immediate family, my extended family, my church, my spiritual heroes, my teachers, my pastors, my friends, my co-workers, and a lot of perfect strangers are all part of this web that is currently drawing new people in.  This is my new favorite image of the Kingdom of God. “

All the rest of the fruits of the Spirit have as their prerequisite love. 

 

Prayer:  Thank you God for the web of love you have cast all around us.  May it heal our divisions and hold us together. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Ask God to lead you to who to focus on in your prayers today.

 

Video:  Today, a video and a song. This may be one of my favorite illustrations of all time, so you may have seen it before, but it’s worth a repeat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSR8z_0uW5E

Song: Hold Us Together (You had to know it was coming. It’s my favorite praise song!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvnVjLX_hRE

Who Taught You That?

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.                              2 Timothy 2:2

 

I often take for granted that whatever ability I have to love comes from people who showed me what love looked like – My Mom and Dad, My Mother and Father in-law, coaches, teachers, mentors, friends and so many others.  I have often wondered about people who show a complete inability to treat people with love and respect as if they should have been born with such an ability.  Too often, they are that way because they haven’t ever been shown any different.  I have to work hard to remind myself of that a lot of the time.  

In all of the communities that my family has been a part of as a result of my being an itinerant pastor, we have received a legacy of love – that is, we know what it looks like.  Those families and communities have passed on that legacy  - albeit imperfectly at times - but they have passed it on nonetheless.  This doesn’t happen automatically.  It must be done on purpose.

 

We are stewards of the legacy of love we’ve been given.  We need to pass it on to others. 

 

Question:  Other than your family, who are the people that have shown you what love looks like?

 

Prayer:  God, your love has come to us in so many ways and through so many people.  Make us instruments of your love flowing to others. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time thanking God for the people that have shown you what Love looks like.

 

Video:  In addition to a song today, I’m sharing this video. 

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002925583/pass-it-on.html

 

Song: Here’s a short song with a powerful message:  Love – Pass It On (Imagine Dragons)

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2301488066528619

The Opposite of Love

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.              1 John 4:18

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.  However the nemesis of love is fear. Fear creeps into you. Builds up walls. Traps you inside yourself. Fear strangles you slowly, subtly, until one day there’s nothing left to win or lose.                                 Bill Oakland

 

Oakland’s first sentence above is a quote of Ellie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and author of 57 books.   The actual Wiesel quote is this:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead.”

The two quotes together are really powerful for me, and very convicting.  I am no stranger to fear or indifference.  I have struggled with them both all my life.  The ironic thing about being a pastor is that we are expected to be distributors of compassion, but to do that constantly can be overwhelming – to the point that I can become detached.  Detached is another word for indifferent and I have gone there too many times.  I also have, too many times, let my actions be ruled by fear – fear of what people will think, fear of being vulnerable, fear of failure, fear of rejection, etc.  

Perfect love casts out that fear and transforms indifference into compassionate action.  And you all know that by “perfect,” the Bible means “growing.”  I have literally watched this happen in myself.  Over time, I have seen my fear and indifference start to slip away as I step forward in love.  I have so much further to go than I have already come, but I do see progress.

I hope you all do too.  Oakland and Wiesel together are right. Spending your life being afraid or not caring is the same as being dead.  I wish I could say that stepping forward out of fear and indifference is easy. It is not. It is hard and sometimes painful.  Loving is like that. But it beats being dead and more than that, it also moves us toward really living.  I love you all.

 

Question:  Are there specific fears that keep you from stepping forward in love?

 

Prayer: Thank you God for your love that draws us out of fear and indifference.  Help us take a step forward today and every day. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for our Bishop Tom Berlin as he seeks to lead our conference during this difficult time and for Dr. David Allen, our District Superintendent.  

 

Song:  This one has a story.

In 1899, a young poet and school principal named James Weldon Johnson was asked to address a crowd in Jacksonville, Fla., for the coming anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Just two decades had passed since the Reconstruction era, and lynchings were on the rise in the segregated South.

Instead of preparing an ordinary speech, Johnson decided to write a poem. He began with a simple but powerful line, a call to action: “Lift ev’ry voice and sing.”

He paced back and forth on his front porch, agonizing over the lines of the poem.

After finishing each stanza, he handed over the lyrics to his classically trained brother, John Rosamond Johnson, who put the words to music, according to an account from James Weldon Johnson, recalled in the book “Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora” by Shana L. Redmond.

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As he wrote the words, evoking the struggle and resilience of his ancestors, he began to weep. “I could not keep back the tears, and made no effort to do so,” Johnson recounted.

The following year, a chorus of 500 schoolchildren performed the song at the Lincoln celebration. The song quickly took off, becoming a rallying cry for black communities in the South, or as one observer noted at the time, “a collective prayer.”  It was embraced as a hymn in churches and performed at graduation ceremonies and in school assemblies. Within 20 years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People adopted “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” as its official song. For generations to come, it would be known widely as the “black national anthem.”

 

 

Lift Every Voice and Sing – Winston-Salem State University Choir

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyZkRgQ4ZnQ

Self-Care or Self Indulgence

Romans 12:10: “Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves."

John 3:20 “He must become greater; I must become less.” (John the Baptist)

 

One of the great paradoxes of life is that the more we make our lives about ourselves, the more miserable we will be.  To put it positively, the more we use our lives to bless others, the more joy we will have.  The sad thing about this truth is that I know it and often, I still don’t live to bless others.  There is this part of me that always wants me to focus on me. Psychologists call this part the ego. Parker Palmer calls it the “false self.”  Whatever you call it, it is insanely persistent in pursuing what it wants to the exclusion of others. 

One of the lies our ego would have us believe is that, “I’m just taking care of myself, fulfilling my needs.”  But self-care and self-love are not the same as self-indulgence.  If we are made to fulfill a purpose that blesses and helps others, and I believe that we are, then spending our lives simply trying to satisfy our appetites actually betrays our true selves.

As is often case, I know this, but I don’t do it even close to as much as I want.  I’m thankful for you all because you all help me hear the voice of my true self.  I have this deep desire to see you all be blessed and I know that is the real me.  Some of the most fulfilling times in my life have been when I was immersed in doing things for others –I want to see more of that guy.  I’m working on that.

 

Question:  Can you describe the difference in how you feel when you are blessing others vs. when you are being self-indulgent?

 

Prayer:  God, you are, by definition, love.  You delight in blessing us.  We pray that we could experience that delight in living for and loving each other.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for peace in the streets of our cities.

 

Song: Give it Away – Michael W. Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc55Y1KqLYw

Fruit of the Spirit

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

 

You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?                                                                        Jesus, in Matthew 7:16

 

Hebrews 10:24-25: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

 

Today we begin a series on the fruits of the Spirit.  We talk at the beginning of this series about love because it is the first that Paul mentioned in his list.  Love is first for the same reason he held love up as the greatest over faith and hope. Here we go!

I love being a pastor, but I hope it is mostly evident that the favorite thing I am is a husband and a Dad.  I have always tried to make those roles my priorities.  I cringe at the many times I have let other priorities become first, but I think for the most part, my immediate family have and will always be first.  The reason for this is obvious – I love them.  But here’s something cool that I’ve realized:  making my family my priority is the best thing I can do for all the others in my life.  I know that there have been other staff members I’ve served with who have changed their priorities to put their family first because they have seen me do it,  It’s not the majority, but some.  I have seen my children’s friends take notice of how things are in our family in a good way.  I have seen the families of the babies that are cared for by my wife, and my daughters Emily and Rachel be affected by the way those children are loved.  In short, love multiplies. 

So, knowing that explains why the Apostle Paul wrote these words: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love. . .”

 

Question: Can you name an example of a time when you saw love multiply?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for those who have modeled for us what love looks like.  Help us multiply it. Amen.

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Prayer Focus:  Pray for repentance, forgiveness, and healing of the racism in our country

 

Song: James Taylor – It’s Growing

This is a romantic song originally sung by The Temptations, but I thought it applies to all love

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkRS5FuhFVg

It Keeps Coming Back to One Thing . . .

 

Galatians 5:1 - It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

 

We begin today by summarizing what Paul has said to the Galatian churches so far.  He confronts their obsession over circumcision and the Torah laws as being antithetical to the Gospel.  Following the law can’t save anyone; only Jesus can.  Our invitation is to believe in that truth and trust Christ to save us and bring us into a right relationship with God.  As we all do that, we become adopted sons and daughters of God;  our standing with God is the same as Jesus’s standing.  Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free people are all now part of the same family.  This was God’s intention all along implicit in his promise to Abraham to make Abraham a Father to all the nations.  We have been freed from the law and sin and we are freed from the divisions that plague us. 

In today’s passage, Paul adds a caution concerning this newfound freedom in Christ.  If we don’t use our freedom in the right way, we run the risk of falling back into the entrapments of sin.  This isn’t all that hard to grasp as we see this happening every day.  Christians fall into addictions of every kind.  They enter into destructive relationships.  They get caught up in the frenzies of conspiracy theories that lead to division and sometimes even violence.  They are exercising freedom, but these expressions of freedom are leading them right back into bondage.  Paul says that there is an alternative and that alternative is love:

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” (Galatians 5:13-15)

As you work through vast sections of scripture in both the Old and New Testaments, it keeps coming back to one thing – love.  It’s almost as if that is what all of our lives with God and each other boil down to – love.  It’s almost like all those songs about love being all that you need are right.  It’s almost like it really is as simple as “love God and love People.”  Go figure.

The kicker is that we know from experience that “simple” seldom equates to easy and that is the painful truth here.  For the love that scripture keeps reverting back to is not sentimentality but loving action towards God and each other forever and ever, amen.  We know that definition of love may be simple to understand, but seem impossible to actually live out.  Have you ever intentionally tried to act lovingly toward EVERYONE for even one day?  If you haven’t, try it for the next 24 hours.  Even if you have tried to do it before, do it again until after your next sleep. 

 

Challenge: (instead of a question today)  Act with love for everyone without exception.  All day.  Every minute.  Everyone. Seriously. I mean it.  We’ll talk more about this love experiment next time.

 

Prayer:  God, everything action you take is done in love.  Help us, your adopted children, learn how to do the same.  Amen,

 

Prayer Focus:  Pick 5 people you haven’t thought about in a long time and pray for God’s love to be made real to them today.

 

Song:  This is one of those sentimental old love songs, but maybe we can hear something deeper in it today.

Forever And Ever, Amen - Randy Travis (Cover by Endless Summer ft Summer Overstreet)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iifj0yGVQkI

How is Such Cruelty Possible?

Mark 15:29-32, CEB - People walking by insulted him, shaking their heads and saying, “Ha! So you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, were you?  Save yourself and come down from that cross!”

In the same way, the chief priests were making fun of him among themselves, together with the legal experts. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself. Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross. Then we’ll see and believe.” Even those who had been crucified with Jesus insulted him.

 

            Meditating on this passage allowed me to notice a surprising detail I had always missed before now.  The chief priests begin their mocking of Jesus, by saying, “He saved others. . . “ They freely admit that Jesus saved others.  They knew and acknowledged Jesus had saved others, yet they were determined to see Him killed nonetheless.  This makes the irony in their next statement pretty thick:

            “Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross. Then we’ll see and believe.”

They just acknowledged they had already seen and believed.  In their attempts to mock Jesus, they inadvertently condemn themselves. 

            It is particularly curious anyway, the disposition of people comfortable with publicly mocking a man hanging on a cross taking their last breaths.  As I try to take my own frequent advice and put myself in the place of the villains in the story, I imagine that in order to do such a thing, I would have had to nurture and develop an intense hate for someone.  To revel in another human being’s horrific demise, I imagine that I would have to see them as something other than another human being.  And as soon as I realize that truth, I realize that I am capable of such awfulness. This is because I know I have been guilty at times of dehumanizing my foes. 

            Doing so is a defense mechanism, a way of convincing myself of my rightness in feeling so hateful towards another.  This defense persists admirably until I see clearly in these narratives of Jesus on the cross that Jesus never allowed Himself such mechanisms.  Jesus had more reason to foster hate for these people standing around Him gawking at His suffering than I ever I have in all of my half-century of life.  He had been beaten and battered until He could no longer stand.  He had a crown of thorns shoved into his skull.  He is hanging on one of the most tortuous execution devices ever devised.  And having innocently endured all of that, He is now being mocked and teased by people who have just admitted His amazing deeds, yet want Him dead anyway.  Putting myself briefly in Jesus’s place, I cannot imagine not intensely hating the people doing this. 

            Yet Jesus never indulged the hatred.  In Mark’s account, he simply absorbs the animosity and remains silent.  He persists in loving all, even those who hate in return.  We often proclaim the cross as the God-designed victory over death.  Of course it is that, but it is also the victory of love over hate.  Mark’s message to the heavily persecuted church that he wrote this gospel for is that Christ’s victory over hate can be theirs as well.  Obviously, that powerful message is for us as well. 

 

Question:  Is there any resentment built up in your heart that perhaps you need to let go of in order to choose the path of Christ instead?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, we praise You for the perfect love You showed in Your life and in Your death.  We confess we fall short of loving the way You do.  Empower us by Your Spirit to let go of our resentments and be free of the toxicity that poisons our soul.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you are tempted to harbor resentments toward today.

 

Song:  He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word - Tesfa Wondemagegnehu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM8SULN_G_w

The Dance

Mark 6:6b-13, NIV - Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.  Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.

These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.  Wear sandals but not an extra shirt.  Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.  And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”

They went out and preached that people should repent.  They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

 

  This story forms the basis for the now common arrangement between Christian leaders and the people they serve.  The leaders depend on the resources of those they serve.  Pastors and even some other church staff often live in accommodations provided by the church they serve and they are compensated by the tithes and gifts given by those same congregation members.  It is interesting, given that the leaders are challenged to depend on the resources of those they serve, that they are also instructed to challenge those who support them to repent or change their ways.  It is quite the delicate dance that Jesus sends His apprentices into – expect support from the same people they are charged to challenge. 

  This is not an especially innovative arrangement, for most businesses operate similarly; those in business depend on their customers’ resources.  The argument could even be made that often businesses have the added task of convincing their customers to change their ways in order to purchase the business’s product or service.  However, Jesus takes it to a higher level.  Not many business owners stay in their customers’ houses. Further, it’s one thing to convince a customer to part with her money so that she can buy the latest product she didn’t think she needed.  It’s quite another to stay in someone’s house, call into question the morality of your host, and expect that the host will still house and feed you.  This is why it is generally not a good idea to talk religion and politics at the annual family Thanksgiving.

  However, this is indeed the task Jesus gave His apprentices.  He confers upon them His authority over impure spirits, but He knows that, even with that authority, the disciples will sometimes still be rejected.  He prepares them for that with the instruction to, when that happens (and it WILL happen), “shake the dust off your feet.”  This instruction forms the basis of itinerant ministry.  Do the dance of hospitality and challenge until you are rejected or the support runs dry; then move on to the next place. 

  As one who has been in itinerant ministry for three decades now, I have come to realize that this dance is not just the dance of ministry.   It is the dance of love.  When you serve others out of love, that love often garners support.  After all, who doesn’t want to be loved?  However, loving someone sometimes requires us to challenge the very people we love, even at the risk of being rejected.  Looking at it from the other side, sometimes love comes to us in the form of challenge; we need to change.  Sometimes, the very people we would like to “throw out of our house” are the people to whom we need to be listening.  Real ministry and real love are not “soft.” If you’re doing it right, you’ll find that both are rather risky.  They are both our call nonetheless.

 

Questions:   Is there a challenge from someone that loves you that you need to hear?  Is their a challenge you need to make to someone that you love?

 

Prayer:  God, teach us the dance of ministry and love. Even when we don’t get the steps right, keep us dancing.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time asking God to place on your mind specific people to pray for.

 

Song:  Bold as Love – John Mayer (Jimi Hendrix cover) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qIunneAx6Y

The Roller Coaster

 

We take a break from our series on the book of Mark to address the situation in Florida right now.

 

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 - Love never fails. 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.

 

This week has been quite an emotional roller coaster.  It began while, in the midst of dealing with my truck breaking down, I was summoned to Jacksonville with my brother (who has been battling cancer for the last 8-9 months) being admitted to the ICU with the family being told that he might not survive.  Over the next few days, he fought hard and pulled through.  He continues to improve as I write this and all the McCreazies are immensely thankful to God for that.  While that was all unfolding, Hurricane Ian was moving off the mainland of Cuba and taking aim at Florida.  Ian ended up making landfall among the barrier islands of southwest Florida yesterday.  One of those islands, Pine Island, is where I served my last church before moving to Hernando just over a year ago. 

The early reports from the island are heartbreaking.  The bridge to the mainland is washed away, many treasured landmarks are gone, and countless homes and business are completely destroyed.  There are unconfirmed reports of many deaths and I fear that we haven’t heard the worst yet.   Even inland, in Cape Coral and Fort Myers, the videos and reports are catastrophic.

 My son and his girlfriend were in Fort Myers just hours before the storm hit and thankfully were able to make it to our home in Hernando around midday yesterday.  Hernando has been largely unaffected by the storm while it is currently passing over Orlando where my oldest daughter is and is projected to move toward Jacksonville where the rest of my family is over the next day or two.    

So, I find myself filled with this insane mixture of emotions.  I am so grateful for the improvement my brother’s condition, though he still has mountains of adversity ahead of him.  I am so relieved my son and his girlfriend arrived safely at our home.  I have mixed feelings about Hernando being largely untouched by Ian because I know people that I dearly love have not been so fortunate.  Further, not knowing about how so many more people I love are doing right now is a heavy burden.  And finally, I find myself feeling a bit silly for sharing my concerns because I am safe, healthy, and not in danger. I feel a bit schizophrenic at the moment. 

Pulling up from all of this to gain a wider perspective, the underlying reason for all these competing emotions is the web of strong relationships in my life.  My fears, worries, praises, fits of gratitude, grief, moments of relief mixed with awe, and all the other emotions I have difficulty naming stem directly from the love I have for so many people and the love so many people have for me.  Such is the way in which God has blessed me and so many of you.    So I’ll take it and thank God for all of it, even the parts that hurt.  The alternative is being completely isolated, alone, caring for nothing and no one other than myself.  I want no part of that. 

So today and the coming days, I’ll pray for all those I love in need, being sure to mix all my petitions with praise and thanksgiving.  I will look for tangible ways for me (and those I lead) to help those who are devastated and facing the unknown.  I will hug my loved ones tighter and reach out to people that haven’t heard from me in a while.  Somewhere in all of that, my truck will get fixed too.  Life and love goes on.  The roller coaster ride continues. Praise be to God for all of it.

 

Question:  What is the connection between the positive and/or negative emotions you are experiencing right now and your relationships with people you love?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for all of it – the good, the bad, the ugly, the painful, the joyful and everything else.  Help me embrace all of it as an opportunity to love well and serve the greater good.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray a little more for all the people that tug at your emotions right now.

 

Song:  Stubborn Love – The Lumineers

This song came to mind while I was writing the above.  It obviously was written about a romantic relationship, but I think a lot of what is said applies to what I was talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGewQB3mDv4

Love Never Gives Up

Romans 8:37-39 (NLT) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.  And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 Corinthians 13:7 (NLT)  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

 

God never gives up on us.  God’s love never leaves us.  Other people may leave us or just withdraw for a while.  We may even give up on ourselves.  But God never will.  I have to say that the longer I think about that, the more I don’t understand it.  I give up on people a lot and even feel justified in doing so.  Sometimes I feel like I have to withdraw sometimes out of self-preservation.  And I when I fret about my poor ability to keep loving, I often tell myself that God can keep loving long after I stop because after all, God is God and I’m not.  This is true.  But this scripture won’t let me off the hook.  I still feel called to persevering love (and by that, you know by now that I mean loving action).

 

The reality is that sometimes I’m “all out of love” (a reference to what you many would find an extremely cringe-worthy Air Supply song).  What I notice about myself in those low moments is that I am not only unable to love the other, but I am also woefully out of touch with God’s love for me.  I also notice that some of the times I have been able to love someone even when it’s really hard have also been times when I felt God’s love the most.  Those two things are connected.  Actively loving others actually draws us more fully into God’s love AND connecting with God’s love helps us love others when it's hard.  

Today concludes our series on Faith, Hope, and Love.  We will begin a new series tomorrow.  No, I’m not telling you what it is.  You’ll just have to wait and see.  Until then, I love you all!

Question:  Do you think there is a connection between our connection to God’s love and our loving action towards others?

 

Prayer:  God, thank you for never giving up on us.  Help us to see that there is no one that you ever give up on.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for world peace.  I know that’s a cliché’ but there are mounting tensions between nations right now.  The last thing we need right now is yet another war.

 

Song:  Casting Crowns (w/ Steven Curtis Chapman) Listen to Our Hearts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxqHo2Pvfm0

Love Changes Lives

2 Corinthians 5:17 - Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

 

The Sun Does Shine is Anthony Ray Hinton’s own autobiographical story.  Hinton spent 30 years on death row for murders he did not commit because the white sheriff, the white judge, and the white jury were racist.  On Death row, he actually befriends a white supremacist who is in for murder.  The friendship overcomes and reverses the man’s racism.  Ray’s friend was eventually executed, but his last words were these: “All my life, I was taught how to hate.  The people I was taught to hate taught me how to love. I die knowing what love feels like because of them.” 

Loving people changes them.  Christ makes us a “new creature” by the way He loves us.  That love comes in many ways and through people.  I am not who I would have been if I had not been loved by so many people.  The same is true of all of you.  Pay it forward.

 

Question:  How have you seen or experienced how love changes people?

 

Prayer:  God your love makes us new. We thank you for that.  Help us be part of making others new by the way we love them. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are stuck in hate

 

Song: For Good (From “Wicked”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0pXUb5jVU

Loving Life

Deut. 30:19-20 - “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!  You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

 

This passage is obviously about loving God, but I think it is also about more than just that.  I think it is about the choice to love the life God has given us.  I often find myself criticizing the life God has given me.   I want to live in a place with a cooler climate (I love you all, but I don’t love this humidity!)  I want to spend less time making car repairs. I want to be 100 pounds lighter.  There is nothing inherently wrong with these wants UNTIL they cause me to lose gratitude and love for the life I have.  The more I focus on what I don’t have, the more I LEARN to focus on what I don’t have.  When I live that way, I am also influencing others to live that way.  This is the tragic way toward death. 

This is the choice “between blessings and curses.”  Hence the Lord’s pleading to “choose life.” It is a choice we are invited to make every day.  Love the life I’ve been given – the family, the friends, the work, the opportunities, the beauty around me, and even the things I’ve been given.  I can always find something wrong with all of those things, but finding fault is not the way of life and blessing.  I am going to work hard on choosing life more than I do now.

 

Question:  Are there attitude adjustments you can make towards loving the life you have more?

 

Prayer:  God of life and blessing.  You invite us to choose life which seems so obvious.  But the choice is often hard to live out.  Help us see one place today where we can move from curses to blessings. Amen

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for all families who are struggling with being separated right now.

 

Song:  CHOOSE LIFE (Big Tent Revival)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX4fC4WFCIU

Love and Reputation

Proverbs 3:3-4: “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man."

 

Over the course of my life, I have known several people with the reputation of being extraordinary kind and compassionate.  They are the kind of people that, when their name is mentioned in public, there are immediate accolades. 

“She’s so thoughtful.”

“He’s always helping someone!”

Most likely, you know people like this is well.  Here is the point; people who are faithfully good to others over a period of time earn a reputation for being people of love.  They earn a “good name in the sight of God and man.” 

To be clear, that shouldn’t be why we do it. But the speaker of wisdom in the proverb above is pointing out that love and faithfulness is its own reward.  To be sure, loving people doesn’t always come back to you – sometimes people question your motives.  Sometimes they accuse you of being naïve.  After all, love earned Jesus the cross.  But even the cross becomes the ultimate symbol for what love looks like.  Take that crucifiers.  You can’t smear the reputation of pure love.

So make that your target and I’ll make it mine.  Let’s make it our legacy, what we were known for while we were here.  Who knows?  Maybe someone will see what we do and be inspired to do the same.  And so onward and upward goes love.  Praise be to God who is Love. 

 

Question:  Who are some examples of people we know who are known for the way they love God and people?

 

Prayer:  Loving God, thank you for the people we have gotten to show love to over the course of our lives. Help us to continue to treat people with love and kindness so well that we are known for it. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the leaders of your church today.

 

Song: He Reigns – Newsboys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHl3Ut6PPSw

Love Covers

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. 

1 Peter 4:8

 

I started out the focus on love by confessing that, although I know a lot about love, I struggle to actually live it out well.  For that reason, I am comforted by the words of scripture above. God's perfect love is able to cover up and overcome my sins.  However, looking at at these words again today, I notice that they do not let me off the hook.  Reading them again today, I hear a “suck it up soldier” in it today.  It like it’s saying to me, “so you screwed up the love thing; your only recourse is to keep loving.  Love is the only thing that can make up for sin.”

It makes sense. God, who is love, makes up for our sin by becoming Jesus, who is Love Incarnate.  We are made in the image of that God, so we make up for sin by loving as well. 

For all the times I have acted toward you all in ways that betray love, I am sorry.  Know that I am committed to and currently working on growing in my love for all.  To be sure, I will get it wrong again.  But my hope is that what will ultimately stand out for you when I move on some day is my loving of you (and God’s loving of you) covered up the multitude of my sins. 

 

Question:  How do you hear the scripture above?  (Example, I heard it in a “suck it up soldier” kind of way.)

 

Prayer: Merciful God, thank you for covering our sins with your love.  May we be open to be used to convey that same kind of redeeming love to each other and others by our actions. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for yourself today.  Pray for the ways that you need to grow in loving God, yourself, and others.

 

Song: Sweet Adoration – Watershed Worship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edYTScCDG8k

Love Holds it All Together

Colossians 3:12-14  Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

1 Corinthians 16:14: “Do everything in love."

 

Paul talks about many virtues – compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness – but he states that love “binds them all together in perfect unity.”  When those virtues lived out purely, they are natural extensions of love.  It is possible to do a kind thing or act humble without love.  When we do that, we break integrity.  The literal definition of integrity is “the state of being whole and undivided.”  It is only when we “do everything in love” that we are living with integrity, because love holds it all together.

Too many people live with divided spirits.  Their outward behavior is honorable – they are kind and considerate to others.  They appear humble, patient, and even forgiving.  But underneath, a storm of quiet hurt, anger, and resentment brews.  They are restless, dissatisfied, and long for their inward condition to match their outward persona.  So it begs the question, how do we “put on love over all these virtues?” 

Paul goes on to explain vs 15-16:

The peace of Christ must control your hearts—a peace into which you were called in one body. And be thankful people. The word of Christ must live in you richly. Teach and warn each other with all wisdom by singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

 

Putting on love begins with a growing connection to Jesus. His peace begins to take up residence in our spirits.  This is a source of peace that comes in no other way.  When you live with that growing awareness, our inner “weather” is more peaceful and composed.  Paul further explains that this growing connection to Jesus comes from meditating on the teachings of Jesus and engaging our spirits in worship.  We intentionally practice gratitude.  In other words, spiritual discipline leads to spiritual peace which leads to love becoming our internal disposition.  Our noble actions are in alignment with our holy hearts.  Integrity of heart, mind, and action are achieved.  And the thing that holds it all together is love.

 

Question:  Are there times when you actually feel “divided” because love wasn’t your primary motivation?

 

Prayer:  Loving God, you always display perfect integrity because you always act towards us in love. Teach us your ways of love. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for those who have or are dying. 

 

Song:  Amazing Love (You are My King)  - Phillips, Craig, Dean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k-03tYyrz4