Do I Love God Unconditionally?

There is a power that the Bible calls Satan, the Accuser, the Evil One, and the Devil.  He is also called the Father of Lies.  When bad things happen in our lives, Satan wants to use those events as an opportunity to persuade us to doubt God’s goodness. 

The story of the first sin in Genesis tells us that the Father of Lies has been with us from the very beginning, craftily putting in our minds the suspicion that God does not really care about our happiness.  In fact, the serpent in Genesis 3 suggested to the first woman and man, “God is holding you back from becoming all that you could become. You can’t trust God.” 

This doubt about God’s has infected all of us.  This lie about God’s character has separated us from God.   

In the story of Job, Satan says to God, “You have made Job prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!”  The same Accuser, the serpent of Genesis 3, tries to prove that a good person will turn against God when bad things happen.

The question for us to answer for ourselves as we hear the story of Job  is this:  Do I love God for God’s sake or do I love God for what life has given me?  Another way of asking the same question is, Do I unconditionally love and trust God even when the worst happens in my life?  Or does my love for God depend upon the conditions of my life being good and comfortable?

The much-loved hymn, It Is Well with My Soul, asks the question this way:  Do I love God “When peace like a river attends my way” and “When sorrows like sea billows roll?”

The Power of Our Words

Do you remember the old story about a man who has been gossiping, saying critical things about people in his church and in his neighborhood?  His pastor calls him and says, “I’d like for you to come and talk to me tomorrow.  Bring a feather pillow with you.”  When the man comes the pastor talks to him about the hurt that gossip can cause.  Then he takes him up to a second story in the church building, opens a window, takes the feather pillow the man has brought, cuts it open and dumps all the feathers out into the breeze.
 
“Now,” says the pastor, “Go pick up all those feathers and put them back in this pillow case.”
“I can’t do that,” says the man.  “The feathers have scattered so far and wide, gathering them up would be impossible.”

The pastor looks into the eyes of his church member and says, “It is the same with the words you have spoken about others.”

James is blunt on the importance of our words. ‘If anyone appears to be “religious” but cannot control his tongue, he deceives himself and we may be sure that his religion is useless.’ (James 1:26 Phillips)

At the same time, words are powerful to bless and build up.  Henri Nouwen reminds of that.  ‘Often we remain silent when we need to speak.  Without words, it is hard to love well.  When we say to our parents, children, lovers, or friends:  "I love you very much" or "I care for you" or "I think of you often" or "You are my greatest gift," we choose to give life.’

What Matters Most to Our Church

Fleda and I recently watched the movie, Moneyball.  It is about Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s major league baseball team.  In 2002 the Oakland A's, at the end of the regular season, had won the same number of games as the New York Yankees, who spent $1.4 million per game won. Oakland spent $260,000 per game won – 5.3 times more efficient. During one stretch the A's won 20 games in a row, a streak that had not been accomplished in more than 120 years.

How did Beane do this? He took the revolutionary step of ignoring the usual characteristics of players that had always been valued highly by managers, coaches,   and front offices – running, throwing, hitting, fielding.  Instead he analyzed each player's ability to contribute to the factors that had statistically proven to matter most (to win games): the ability to get on base and to score runs.

As a result of using this entirely different approach, Beane got more wins per dollar than any other team. That is what every manager wants to do: get the most wins per dollar spent. With enough money, any manager can hire the best players at every position and get more wins.

Our church is a version of moneyball. If we work hard enough we can create apparent success in a lot of things: recognition, buildings, and more. But if we're not aware of what truly matters, we can accomplish all that and still miss the things that matter most: the fruit of the Spirit of Christ - love, joy, and peace. We can look like a successful church but lose the game.

We at New Hope are going to pursue what matters most.  Our goals come from the Bible, especially from Ephesians 3:16-19.  They are “strength of the Spirit in our inner beings, being rooted and established in love, and being filled with all the fullness of God.”  If we pursue the Spirit of Jesus, unconditional love, and the fullness of God we will have the most important things and be a truly successful church.

Peacemakers

As I watched the news on Thursday night, I saw children who have been traumatized in the fighting in Syria.  Many children have lost their parents and their homes in the continuing violence.  An American physician of Syrian descent was interviewed as he worked there to try to alleviate suffering and bring some healing to children.  He almost shed tears when the news reporter asked him what he thought about the future of the children of Syria.  He said, “It will be better, when they have their country back.”  It was obvious that he was looking forward to the day when the violence ends and children can do what they are created to do: learn and grow and play, as their parents love them.

Surely, God must weep as he looks on the ways we human beings hurt each other – even innocent, defenseless children.  The prophet Isaiah gave us a vision of peace: “The Lord will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths . . ..   He will judge . . . and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”  That is God’s will for our world: no more lives torn apart, no more killing.

How can God’s will ever be done on earth?  I confess I don’t know.  What I do know is that insofar as I can influence people, I want to work to bring people together.  I can’t do that right now in Syria, but our Bible text for today from Ephesians 1:10 says, “God set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.”  We members of God’s church are a part of His long-range plan to bring everything together in Christ.  We work to bring people together.  That means that the highest priority in New Hope Baptist Church is being loving.  We don’t have a more important job to do than to learn how to love as Christ has loved us.  For us, God’s vision of peace starts right here.  May we be peacemakers here in our church and in our community, and we pray to God, may peace come to that child in a hospital in Syria who is crying for his mother, who can’t come to him because she is also seriously injured

Family Time and American Freedom

Time away to be with family and to relax a bit is always good.  We enjoyed more than a week with our granddaughter, keeping her tradition of being with us for New Hope’s VBS. This was her sixth year.  Then we met her parents in Tampa, and together enjoyed the Rays baseball game on Saturday night.  Fleda and I also visited a cousin of mine in Wesley Chapel, and we all visited Madison’s great-grandmother, who is in a nursing center in St. Pete.

Fleda and I enjoyed our usual quiet Fourth of July at home.  We watched the Independence Day celebration in Washington on the steps of the Capitol and on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial.

As we listened to powerful patriotic music, I thought about how securing freedom cost the pilgrims and the colonial patriots more than we can fully imagine. Then I found this piece by Robert Franklin, the president of Morehouse College.
 
“Before the original celebration of independence came great suffering and self-denial.  One hundred and fifty years before the Revolutionary War, the pilgrims of Plymouth (1620) endured brutal winters.  In fact, the history books indicate that 46 of the original 102 colonists perished from the lack of fresh food to eat and the inability to treat resulting diseases . . . . Think about it.  In the 1600s, Americans fought the elements to survive.  During the 1700s, Americans fought the British for their independence.  In the 1800s, Americans fought each other over the moral issue of slavery.  And during the 1900s, Americans fought international powers to protect freedom in the world.  In the days of the early 21st century, a divided nation would begin to slow march toward healing and unity . . . .  Then on 9/11, we were shaken to our collective core when a fateful attack killed several thousand.  I am proud to say, however, that in the fashion of our forefathers and mothers – with God as a directing force – we rallied to make sense of and learn from that devastating day in world history.”

I believe Dr. Franklin is right, and I pray that Americans will learn even more about how to seek God as a directing force and come together to find strength “at the broken places.”

Teaching Our Children to Know and Love God

Deuteronomy 6: 6 -7 says, “You must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today.  Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.”  The words are about teaching ourselves and our children the commands of God.  What are those commands?

In Deuteronomy these are the top two:  “Hear!” and “Love!”

God’s people are to hear that the LORD who brought them out of slavery is the one true God.                                                                                       God’s people are to Love the LORD with all that is in them.

 

Our job as a church today is to teach the command to hear God.  We teach the truth to ourselves and to the next generation.  The one true God is Yahweh, the LORD, who brought his people out of slavery in Egypt.   We teach that it was this God who came to us in the Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus is the best look we have at God and what God is like.  We commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the command to hear and live by his truth.  We are disciples – learners and followers – of Jesus.  And we teach those who come after us this same command.  Jesus of Nazareth is our clearest way of knowing the one true God.  Listen to him.

We teach ourselves and the next generation to obey the command: “Love God with all that is in you.”  What do we love when we love God?  We love people.  We learn to love them with unconditional love, the only kind of love that counts.  It is unselfish. It cares about the other person’s genuine happiness without expecting to get anything in return. “This how we know what real love is.  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1John 3:16) 

At New Hope, we place the highest value on teaching ourselves and our children and their children to hear and love God.  That is why providing Bible study for children and adults is such a high priority for us.  That is why we need more space in which to do our teaching.

Friends and Trusting in God's Love

Henri Nouwen wrote,   “We need friends.  Friends guide us, care for us, confront us in love, console us in times of pain.  Although we speak of "making friends," friends cannot be made.  Friends are free gifts from God.  But God gives us the friends we need when we need them if we fully trust in God's love.

“Friends cannot replace God.  They have limitations and weaknesses like we have.  Their love is never faultless, never complete.  But in their limitations they can be signposts on our journey towards the unlimited and unconditional love of God.  Let's enjoy the friends whom God has sent on our way.”

God is the source of unconditional love.  Only God is Real Love.  We can be channels of it from time to time.  As Nouwen says, in our limitations we can be “signposts” to others on their "journey towards the unlimited and unconditional love of God."

I see in my life the truth of Nouwen's statement: "God gives us the friends we need when we need them if we fully trust in God's love." 

Not too far from where we live in DeLand is Blue Springs State Park.  You can rent an inner tube there and carry it up to the spring and float down the run on that clear, cool water.  The friends who understand Real Love and who have flowed into my life in recent years have given me the feeling of being carried along on the clear, cool stream of God's love.    

This past week, I had an opportunity to talk to someone about Real Love.  I offered to introduce her to "The Essentials of Real Love" Seminar on DVD.  Nothing gives me more happiness in ministry than teaching Real Love.  That is because I see so clearly that we can be the friends God sends into the lives of others, if they will receive God's gift.  I know that I have limitations and weaknesses, but I also know that I can contribute from time to time to the flow of God's love. I want to do that whenever, however, and as often as I can.  I see that you, my friends in God’s Real Love, can do the same. We don't replace God, but we can be friends to people who need us to be a gift from God.