Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

For years I have felt guilty about those NT commands to show hospitality. Today I discovered this is a false guilt for I had the wrong idea of what that word meant. To me, it was inviting people into my home for meals and even to stay overnight, etc. The people who were identified as gifted in hospitality always did this and for me, it seemed very difficult. So today I delved into the Greek and discovered this: 

The word hospitality comes from philoxenia, meaning "love of strangers," and involves welcoming all people without prejudice. While meals and a bed could be a way of showing it, this is more about an attitude that reflects the love of God toward people. But it is not just a feeling. In the NT, it includes practical acts of service such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and helping those in need. 

Not only that, this word is not a special gift for a few (good cooks with nice table settings?) but an obligation for all Christians that is done without expecting any payback. Instead it may involve personal cost of money, effort, time and talent. It is not mere entertainment or merely sharing a meal, but sharing the life of Christ with others, including the gospel. It is unconditional love, like God’s love, and again, it is often about strangers with needs like hunger, homelessness, illness, or being in prison. 

This is not just about being an extrovert either, such as those who draw strength and feel good about being with people and doing things for them. Hospitality is a selfless obedience, not done to make the doer feel good, but to show God's love in sacrificial ways. I am more of an introvert. So how does hospitality jibe with being an introvert, which often adds to my feeling of falling short? 

I researched that also and now understand how poor word definitions can produce false guilt. This is what I found out about introversion: It is about people who primarily draw energy from solitude and inner thoughts, and who feel drained after social interaction with large groups. It is not necessarily being shy or not liking people, but needing alone time to "recharge" after social events, which make me feel exhausted even though I enjoy them. I do like one-on-one interactions or small groups better than large crowds though. Yet even in small groups, many times I’d rather listen than talk. However, I am able to speak up when the Holy Spirit prompts me. I have very little fear of social judgment. but would often rather stay home than go to many events. 

All of this makes me think of this:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. (Psalm 139:1–6)

PRAY: God, You created me as You desired that I would do what You want from me. Thank You for these thoughts today. While focusing on what You do is vital, so is self-awareness — as You see it. I get skewed by my own ignorance. However, truth revealed by You always sets me free and better equipped to live for Your glory.

Love like God loves…

In a TV show, a woman was asked why she loved a certain man. She said, “Because he makes me happy.” I’ve been married 64 years and in that time, the man I love sometimes makes me happy and sometimes I’ve wanted to strangle him, but that too is not a description of love, at least not the way that God loves.

The gospel says we are not saved by what we do. Even the goodness of the most generous person cannot earn salvation. God’s love is not about the behavior of those He loves; it is about who God is, a God who sacrificed His Son that we might be forgiven and have eternal life. 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

However, there are some Bible passages that are worded as if our behavior is a condition of being saved. This is one of them:

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:35–36)

The last line clearly implies that Jesus is treating His hearers as God’s children. God is their Father, they are his children — so they should be merciful because they have a Father who has mercy and who will treat them (and others) mercifully. But what about the words, “Love your enemies … and you will be sons of the Most High”? 

This sounds like loving your enemies is the condition for being the sons of God rather than the result. It’s as if Jesus says, on the one hand: “Love your enemies because God is your Father,” and on the other: “Love your enemies in order that God might be your Father.”

Another passage says this: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (John 15:8) This translation helps those confused by the one in Luke. Basically it says that I “become” a disciple in the sense of living out what I already am, by my actions proving to others that I am a disciple of Christ. Piper puts it this way: “When you act this way, you prove to be chips off the Old Block.” This is the way my Father is, so I show I am born of God and have his nature. I can love like He loves. 

James also writes about the same thing: 

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

Today’s test is a love test. Am I willing to give up what I want to do, or ignore the demands of my to-do list in order to show love to someone by putting time and effort into meeting their needs? The answer to that is in realizing that showing love to sinners is what God wanted to do. It was at the top of His to-do list. He had nothing else more important on His agenda. For me, this is the difference between walking in His Spirit and living according to the flesh. Loving Him and loving others takes priority over all others ‘I-wants’ as I am filled with His Spirit.

PRAY: Jesus, I confess that today I wanted to do other things instead of giving up my time and effort to show love to others in need. Ignore such selfishness and fill me with Your Spirit that I might not only reveal the fact that my heart belongs to You, but that You are glorified by my actions.

Loving them all…

The dad in a family that has become our family became a Christian in a country that does not tolerate Christians. His family beat him, nearly killed him. He fled to another country and lived there for a decade. He and his wife were able to work and bore three children before realizing they had to move again. Now in Canada, they enjoy the freedom of being able to worship Jesus without threat.

This persecution still happens in many places in the world. Jesus predicted it to the degree that even fathers would give their children up to death and children their parents:

And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. (Mark 13:12)

Being a child of God does not guarantee health, wealth, and a comfortable life. Not every family escapes it as our friends did. In today’s devotional, Piper uses the words of Jesus about children to point to my responsibility toward the children of God:

Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me. (Mark 9:37)

For me, the point isn’t that I’m to give particular care to youngsters who know God, but to His children of any age who believe in Him. I have favorites, but there are a few in His family that irk me for various reasons, or I don’t enjoy being around them for various reasons. God is using this devotional to speak to my sinful attitude.

Piper says: “The question is not whether caring for children is easy and safe, or whether they are responsive and thankful, or whether caring is depleting. The question is whether Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

In other words, I need to do what He says, and I cannot use any excuse such as ‘this is too hard’ because the Bible is clear. Not only did Jesus want loving attitudes toward little ones, but also adults, for we all are His children. Besides that, Jesus is still available to enable such love. The Bible says these truths for my situation:

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13)
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14–19)
I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:12–16)

PRAY: Loving others is always about being filled with Your Spirit, never about them being lovable. Certainly You do not find me lovable. Love is who You are and that should be who I am, in Christ. The love of Christ goes beyond knowledge and beyond reasons. I appreciate the depth of fellowship with many and am not thrilled about the lack of that with others, but You died for all — meaning my old nature died with You and You have given me the Holy Spirit to enable me to love Your children — all of them and all ages.

Love God and show it . . .

 

This morning I’m thinking how sin can hurt other people and having my own way might be costly to others. Two incidents come to mind. One involves a person that I don’t like very much and it would be easy to have my own way and hurt that person’s feelings. The other is someone that I do care about, yet I’ve sometimes picked my own way without letting the thought of hurting them stop me from being selfish.

The last time I did that, I felt no guilt at all. Now I’m realizing the Holy Spirit is setting me up to think this: I know how my sin affects others, but what about the effect my sin has on Jesus?

God showed his love for me in that while I was still a sinner (Romans 5:8) which clearly says that time isn’t the issue: my sins happen after His death, but are still part of what He suffered. If I am facing temptation, I should be thinking of how yielding to selfish desires adds to what He suffered for me. He saved me from sin’s power so I don’t have to do that.

Today’s verse reminds me that His suffering was serious — “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. “(Hebrews 2:9) In serving as my substitute, Christ humbled Himself supremely. Why should I think it is okay to pridefully have my own way and take advantage of His humility?

Not only that, Jesus’ death on the cross was horrific death, not calm and peaceful. He experienced torture and agony. The curse of sin was the guilt and shame for every person who ever lived. He was not guilty of any sin of His own yet willingly suffered a weight that I cannot begin to imagine. Why should I take sin lightly or take His forgiveness for granted? With people I hurt, I can see their pain, but I cannot see the pain Jesus felt — and that is a hopelessly awful excuse to ignore it.

As today’s devotional says, God sent His Son who willingly came to die to redeem mankind, including me. This is amazing. He did it so I could become His adopted child (Galatians 4:4–5). Would I stomp on the loving grace of my physical father? No way. How then can I ignore the cost paid that made me a child of God?

MacArthur writes: “Only by tasting death as a man could He free mankind from death. Historically, kings have had someone taste their food and drink before they consumed it. Christ drained to the dregs the cup of poison rightfully meant for us before it could ever touch our lips. He substituted His death for ours, releasing us from the deadness of sin and bringing us into life with God.”

He was moved by love and grace to suffer for me. I did nothing to deserve salvation and much to deserve death. The people I hurt may or may not have done anything that prompts my sin, but I’m to be like Jesus and love them as He loves me:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

Jesus died for all, then rose from the dead and is crowned with glory and honor and exalted to the right hand of the Father, where He will reign forever and ever. He is my great substitute, whom I can thank and praise throughout all eternity. Each time I sin, I am mocking the one who bore that sin and the guilt of it. Shame on me.

PRAY: Jesus, I can see that being righteous can be motivated by a selfish desire to be popular rather than wanting to glorify You and be like You. You did the will of God because You love us, but also because You love the Father and obeyed Him. I need to be more aware of why I do things, and who it really hurts when I do not obey You. It is important to love people, but that love is supposed to be the way that I show my love for You, not just to get on the good side of them. Forgive me.

PONDER: Among other horrors, Isaiah 52:13–53:12 says that Jesus “was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” and that He was “despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” He bore my griefs and carried my sorrows. While I esteem him smitten by God, He was pierced for my transgressions; crushed for my iniquities. My sin was laid on Him as He made intercession for me. While I cannot be my own Savior, I can love Him and show it by loving others — far better than I do.

 

 

Loving others, no matter what . . .

At a meeting yesterday, I was reminded that yesterday’s post was in error. I actually did experience harm and mistreatment from someone who is rich. That post was prompted by these verses from James that speak to those who are partial to rich people. God asks: “Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?” (James 2:6–7)

I’d not remembered that mistreatment until realizing the person who did the oppressing was at the meeting. Since that event happened, God worked in my heart to take my focus from what was done to me to the horror of what having spiritual blindness and a hard heart does to a person. Instead of wanting to retaliate, I’ve felt great pity for that person and the guilt she may be experiencing for what she did. Unloving behavior can bring deep shame too. This means she needs Jesus just as much as I do. The next verse says:

If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. (James 2:8)

This ‘law’ is vital and comprehensive. It is also akin to the greatest commandment as Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37–40)

Loving others is the way to express my love for God. This is what makes partiality a sin, not only against others but against God for it reveals a lack of love for Him.

As the writer says in today’s devotional, love for God and one’s fellowman summarizes the intent of God’s law and is the measure of true faith. However, this love is not the shallow, emotional, self-oriented love that is so prevalent in our world. Instead, it is that sacrificial love that places the needs of others on par with my own, making it utterly incompatible with partiality. Playing favorites is about furthering my selfish goals, about making me comfortable. I need to love the rich and thoughtless neighbor as much as I love those with less money and bigger hearts.

Showing partiality violates God’s attributes. I could say ‘I’m one of God’s favorites’ but that is not a correct way to describe His mercy toward me or anyone else. He is gracious because of who He is, not anything I’ve done or who I am. I’m to love others the same way — because I am a child of God and being transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

Partiality misrepresents the Christian faith, ignores God’s choice of the poor, and condones any sinful behavior of the rich by ignoring the fact that all are sinners and all fall short, rich or poor. How can I look down my nose on anyone when I am down there with them — a sinner also?

The Bible commends those who are impartial. James said they did well and John writes that this behavior is our assurance that we are Christians:

Whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in (Christ) ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:5–6)

PRAY: Knowing that You love me totally and unconditionally is a huge factor in being able to love others, even those who treat me badly. I do not need the love of others to know my worth to You. While love and kindness from others tends to reinforce that reality, Your love is enough. Knowing that makes it much easier and even imperative to express Your kind of love to those around me. Jesus, thank You for loving me.

PONDER: These verses describe what God’s love is like. Read them again and ask God to use them to increase my love for Him and for my neighbors: John 3:16; Ephesians 5:25–29; Philippians 1:9–11; and 1 John 5:1–3.