Sudden Change

In the past 24 hours we have gone from having three inches of snow to my wife mowing the yard.  Only in northeastern Ohio! Right?

Life can change on a dime.  This sudden transformation reminded me to not take this COVID-19 quarantine for granted.  For sure, nothing’s the same as before. Who would have guessed that 2020 would require all of  us to navigate these difficult waters? Everyday is a faith adventure.

I’m determined not to squander this uncertain time in my life.  Am I completely comfortable with what’s happening? Of course not!  And I’m sure I speak for you as well. But one thing I know: God is asking me to inventory my life.  Let me explain.

1. What have I previously taken for granted?   Lori and I are watching the Netflix series, “When Calls the Heart.”  Frankly, I find it a bit unrealistic at times, but the fact remains that love between husbands and wives and people in general is life’s greatest treasure.  Each episode moves me to an emotional edge. I recommend it for your “virus viewing!”

While watching, I occasionally sneak a glance at my wife of almost 43 years, and my heart is gladdened by her presence in my life.  After the Lord, she is the one constant in my life, who loves me unconditionally and completely. I never want to take her for granted!  What loved one(s) do you need to reaffirm today?

2. Perhaps like you, I have issues in my life that need to be placed under the Lordship of Christ. Not necessarily sin issues, but things that, if confronted and subdued, will enhance my daily living.  For example, I need to watch my food intake. The refrigerator beckons me to open and see! Also, what important tasks have I put off for a better day? In what areas have I procrastinated? Finally, am I “taking every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)?  How? By minding my mind! Making sure that unhealthy, negative, impure, and unnecessary thoughts do not crowd out those things that are “true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and of good repute…” (Philippians 4:8).    

3. During the long hours of quarantine, am I praying more, reading the Scriptures more fervently and waiting for the Lord’s “still small voice” to speak to me?  He promises me “an audience of one!”

4. Am I using this time to speak into the lives of those I love, without becoming annoying?  Understanding the need to maintain personal space, I text, email, write cards, make calls, and send Facebook and YouTube inspirational messages. Let me encourage you to find communication expressions that work for you, and then make someone’s day!

None of us knows what tomorrow holds, but we know who holds tomorrow.  And as life continues to usher in unexpected, at times, harsh changes, we hold to the Lord’s unchanging hand.  He will walk us safely to the other side of uncertainty!

  

Missing My Church Family

Now that we’ve been quarantined from church, unable to attend services, I feel a deeper love for Hope Community.  How I miss gathering with those 50-plus families I hold dear. I miss the “togetherness,” the praise and worship, the preached Word and the family atmosphere.  The energy and anticipation of corporate worship has enhanced my life beyond description. And I’m past ready to return!

What am I thinking about during this time?

1. I need my church family.  None of us were created to do life alone.  I need their funny stories, their prayers, even news of their struggles.  Their hugs, handshakes and smiles make life rewarding. I feel sad for those who build cases against any local church.  They don’t realize what they’re missing!  

2. I now realize that what I thought was so important is so trivial in the overall scheme of corporate worship.  Who cares what people wear?  What difference does it make which songs we choose?  So, what if the mics are not set right or the sound system is too loud for my taste.  What about less than good sermons? Nobody knocks it out of the park all the time! It’s not about me!  Why allow individual idiosyncrasies to bother me? I bring my own to the mix. Critical, unkind and unnecessary comments need not disturb me.  I have no brain space for such tomfoolery. That’s not why I go in the first place!

3. I miss being able to serve and encourage others.  We at Hope Community emphasize servant leadership over titles and positions.  We don’t own the church, we serve it with the gifts God has placed inside us. 

4. I’m using this time to text, email, write cards, send letters, use Facebook Live, You Tube or make calls to individuals as the Lord directs me.  Prayer is a wonderful tool God has given me to bless others and to invite “the kingdom of God to come to earth.”

5. I’m counting down the days to when I’m able to look into the faces of the crowd and grin from ear to ear.  I’m going to smile big, hug a lot, laugh loudly, even cry when the “family” is finally able to gather together again.  I can’t wait for “offering time”!

Hopefully, my perspective will have changed.  I will appreciate the essentials and vow to minimize the non-essentials, or personal preferences.  Just being together again will be enough.

Hope Community, I’m not sure when our doors will re-open for corporate worship, but this I know: I need -- no, I long for -- the love and support my church family provides for both now and eternity.  

In the meantime, keep the faith!  Love you all.  

Keeping Score (Part 3)

In my last two blogs I discussed what it means to “forgive and even forget” those offenses that come into our lives.  In Part One, I taught how we through prayer are able to receive a new interpretation of our painful experiences.  In Part Two, I demonstrated how this principle worked in the life of Joseph, whose brothers grossly mistreated him when he was a teenager.  In Part Three, I wish to offer a partial theological treatise on how God forgives us.

To fully experience the dynamics of forgiveness and forgetting, we need to understand the act of justification. 

Justification is God’s judicial act of declaring believing sinners to become righteous and acceptable in His sight.  It is a legal term.  Justification is possible because Christ has borne the sinner’s sin on the Cross “and has been made unto him righteousness” (1 Corinthians 1:30).  Romans 3:24 says, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Justification springs from the fountain of God’s grace.  “But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5). 

For you see, Jesus satisfied all the demands of the Old Testament Law.  Justification is on the basis of faith, not by human merits or works.  In this marvelous operation of God, the Holy Judge of the universe judicially declares righteous the one who believes in Jesus.

Romans 8:31-34 says, “What then shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Why then is the one who condemned?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died – more than that who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

A justified believer emerges from God’s great court room with a consciousness that Another, His Substitute has borne his guilt and that he stands without accusation before the bar of God.  The believer is justified in Christ and “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). 

So, if God for Christ’s sake forgives us, we can forgive others.  And if God looks upon us “just as if we never sinned,” then we can look upon those who sin against us in like manner.  It’s all by His grace and empowerment .  The prophet Micah was outspoken and fearless in announcing the iniquities of Judah, However, he ended his prophecy with these wonderful words:

“Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession?  He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in his unchanging love.  He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities under his feet.  Yes, you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea”  (7:18-19). 

Even God’s anger does not keep score!  He casts all repented and confessed sin into His “Sea of Forgetfulness” to be remembered against us no more.  Jesus made it clear:  “Whenever you stand praying forgive; if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.  But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions” (Mark 11:25-26).  To forgive is a choice.  The pain may still be felt, but your desire to forgive remains intact. 

Have you embraced the “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget” concept?  Remember, God is able to help you assign a new, redemptive interpretation to your pain.  Rejoice as He pulls the negative emotions out of the skewed details of your past.  Approach your former nemesis, look him in the eyes and give him a big hug (if only in your mind)!  Jesus’ unconditional love and God’s judicial act of pardon will cause you to love everyone!

Do you remember the chorus, “Old Time Religion?  One verse says, “It makes me love everybody.”  It’s hard to love sometimes, but tell your soul man to line up.  Emotions may still remain, but the spirit man wins!  “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5).

Keeping Score (Part 1)

After sin entered the human race in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and everyone born after them have suffered from relationship breakdowns.  Relationships were one of the hardest hit areas of life.  Stories of people who refuse to forgive their perpetrators, who hold grudges and who grow bitter fill the pages of human history.  Many refuse to forgive those who have brought offense and pain into their lives.  They keep a running total of wrongs done.

The New Living Translation renders 1 Corinthians 13:5 this way:  “Love keeps no record when it has been wronged.”  Agape love, or God’s love produces amnesia.  To God, confessed sin is forgiven sin!  Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”  In Isaiah 43:25 the prophet writes, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake.  And I will not remember your sins.”  Isaiah 37:18 says, “It is You who has kept my soul from the pit of nothingness.  For you have cast all my sins behind your back."  Psalm 130:3 reminds us that “If you Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”  Sin placed under the blood of Jesus Christ is gone and forgotten!

Often we hear people say, “I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.”  I used to subscribe to this way of thinking until one day the Lord challenged my attitude.  A lot of Christians buy into this unscriptural teaching.  In reality, many times it’s justification for on-going grudge-holding. 

Forgive and forget.  Is it possible?  Yes and no!  All of us have been hurt by someone – probably more than once.  The prophet Zechariah said it this way:  “I was wounded in the house of my friends” (13:6).  Someone said, “I’m not God, so it’s impossible for me to forget hurtful people and situations in my life.  I don’t go brain dead when I forgive.  I still remember the details!” 

That’s not completely true.  Given time, none of us with one-hundred-percent accuracy remember the details of our lives.  However, we DO assign an emotion to everything that happens to us.  When offenses come our way, it’s not our spirit man who gets wounded; it’s our soul man.  Our soul – mind, will and emotions – reacts negatively during times of offense.  Again, we don’t remember facts.  We assign negative emotions to those facts. 

I am the middle of seven siblings.  It’s amazing when we get together as adults and discuss childhood memories.  None of us agree on the facts, and all of us assign different emotions to what took place.  Both positive and negative emotions come to the surface, depending on our individual interpretation of the facts.  Isn’t that crazy?

Like people in general, Christians get hurt along life’s journey.  Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:10 that offenses will accelerate in the last days:  “And then many will be offended…” However, we possess the indwelling Spirit, Who helps us righteously process those negative experiences that afflict our soul.  Through prayer God assigns new interpretations to our negative experiences.  What people sometimes mean for evil, God reverses for our good – and theirs! 

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK:  How this principle played out in the life of Joseph (His story is found in Genesis 37-50).

God's Love

I wonder.  Does God love “saved” people more than “unsaved” ones?

I don't believe the Lord makes a distinction at all between the two.  Let me take you to two verses that most Christians are quickly introduced to after their conversion:

1.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).  God didn't just love the world (lost people everywhere); He SO LOVED the world!  Do you sense the divine passion in that phrase?  God is madly in love with everyone--saints or sinners.  I believe the Bible illustrates that God loves people the same--regardless of their spiritual condition.  Saved people, of course, delight His heart, but I don't think that the lost state of unbelievers lessens His love toward mankind.  God's very nature is to love people.  His passion is to see everyone (the world) come into a relationship of the saving kind with Him.  His love is all-encompassing.

2.  "But God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).  The Greek word for "commends" parallels our word, "directs."  In other words, "For God so directed His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."  1 John 4:17 says that "God is love."  The beloved disciple of Jesus makes no distinction between saints and sinners.  God loves us--period!

Surely, the state of unsaved people must sadden the heart of our loving God.  But that doesn't mean He loves them any less than He does we who have accepted His Son's sacrifice on the Cross.  Let me give you this example:

A couple may have children who delight their hearts and who walk in total obedience to their parenting.  That same couple may also have children who openly defy them and walk in harsh rebellion.  That couple may grieve over their prodigal children, but their love for them remains intact and equal.  Keep in mind that love is not an emotion; it's something we set our hearts to do.  Those parents may experience anger, frustration and every emotion between the two, but that does not mean they love their difficult children any less.  God's love is not established on emotion, but on His character.  He can't do anything BUT love.

Yes, continued spurned love will one day bring His judgment and wrath, but until then, I believe this wonderful "hound of heaven" relentlessly stays on the trail of both the saved and unsaved.  It is love that drives our heavenly Father, and it "is the kindness (goodness) of God that leads men to repentance" (Romans 2:4).  That verse is tucked away in the middle of a discourse on God's righteous judgments.

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15)?  That father loved both of his sons, even when one chose to squander his inheritance.  How it must have hurt his heart to see his son waste his life "on riotous living."  Yet, he loved them both and it was his fierce determination that held out for the boy's comeback.  Love certainly does cover a multitude of sin, doesn't it?