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An Observation – on love

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Back in ancient days when I was in what was then called Junior High School, 8th or 9th grade, one of our English teachers would put an expression on the black board and ask us to explain what it meant. One that has stuck with me to this day is from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. At the time I don’t think we even knew what a Sonnet was. At any rate the quote said:     

                “Love is not love which altars when it altercation finds.” 

The class talked about it for a little while but I don’t think that we really understood it. Since we are in the midst of this Holy Week and Easter Season I think it really is a very apt expression. Though Shakespeare didn’t really intend it in a religious sense.

From Holy Scripture we read and often quote it’s most famous verse. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.” St. John’s Gospel Chapter 3, verse 16. This is speaking of the relationship between God and all mankind whom He created. That is the depth, St. John is saying, of the love that Almighty God, our Father, has for each one of us. If we have even a casual relationship with Christians or Christian church worship we’ve been told that God loves us. It is also one of those expressions that we first begin to question when we find ourself in some difficulty or need. Yet, Scripture continues to declare it as God’s truth for each human life.

We also realize that from the time the Bible records our first rebellion from God’s will we have caused our Lord a lot of trouble or “altercation” in the Sonnet’s terms. So much of what leads us to question God’s love is the brokenness of this fallen and rebellious world in which we live. We suffer because of things we’ve done ourselves, or things that happen to us even through no direct fault of our own. Yet we still declare that God’s loves us even though we don’t fully understand why things happen as they do. Is this really love with all of this altercation around me?

I attended a Good Friday community service last evening where the pastor was talking about the nature of this God-love. The service was a large gathering of eight local congregations, 300 or400 Christians, many young families with small children. The pastor knew the love the people had for one another and observed that many of these people would be willing to even give their life to protect one of their friends. Many agreed that they would be willing. We have all heard accounts of this actually happening in times of great danger.

But then the pastor asked how many of us would be willing to give the life of one of our children to save the life of another? This question bit us very deeply, and none in this large gathering was able to answer in the positive. None of us could say that we had that much love to help another in need.

Is that not the love we are taught that God loves each of us? And we can’t pass it off easily by saying, “Oh, but God knew He was going to bring Jesus back to life.” That trivializes all of the events that led to the the crucifixion and the words spoken from the cross. 

The man Jesus, the son of God in human flesh, was without sin. There was no guilt found in Him, and yet He was given by the Father to take the punishment each of us deserves. We hear that often in our church fellowships, but don’t ever minimize it. The depth of pain is contained in the words spoken from the cross on our behalf. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” That is our pain He is feeling through the nails in His hands and feet and the hatred in the taunts of the jeering crowd. 

That is the love that refused to altar in the midst of your and my altercation of numerous sins and a very sinful nature. That is the depth of love God, our Father, has for you as He works each day, in each situation of life, to lead you into His best life. 

And since I’m writing this on the Saturday morning after Good Friday, we have the assurance of that love in the truth of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday morning. These are not just nice Christian stories or sayings we write on a chalk board. This is life itself! The life that offers us forgiveness and cleansing of our sins. The life that comforts and strengthens us in worst of life’s times. The life that seeks to guide us day by day giving us meaning and purpose. And a life that assures us of it’s endless nature in eternal fellowship with our Good Lord.

This is the life and love that allows us to identify with the Lord Jesus when He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit”, and to know the depth of love that passes all understanding. 

God’s blessing my dear friends. Rejoice, and live daily in God’s love and your love for one another.  Amen.

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An Observation: We’ve Changed….

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Well of course we have with the passage of time. We’ve gotten older. We have a lot more technological innovations changing the way we work and play. We’ve learned new things. Yes, of course all these have changed our physical appearance and the manner in which we live. All this is natural with the passage of years, but I’m looking at more than this. I’m thinking of the change that has taken place at the core of our being. An inward change.

When I say “we’ve” changed I’m looking in the collective sense of society as a whole, the nature of the world in which we live in this third millennium. Individually we are called by our Lord to observe our world and guide our own lives by Holy Scripture as we are guided by the Holy Spirit. This is where we enter into a spiritual battleground, recognizing the changed nature of our world yet seeking to guide our selves and our family by the values and nature of our Lord Jesus.

Living in this vastly changed world we now occupy is what I’ve been writing about in my book Not For This Life Only and in these Observations on my website: Life-Has-Meaning.com. I am an old retired Lutheran pastor. What I write about is more than just an older person not being able to get used to “modern” ways. Of course there is that too, but the changes I refer to are fundamental to the nature of life itself.

In the Introduction to my book I referenced Dr. Peter Kreef’s statement that “We are the first civilization that does not know why we exist. …. The essence of modernity is the abandoning of [a] religious foundation.” Both Dr. Kreef and Dr. Carl Trueman, in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self have traced the changes and acceptance of “truths” over past hundreds of years that have culminated in our accepting of what we see today as the “truth” of who we are as human beings. It is these so called truths that are contrary to the people God made us to be. Dr. Trueman refers to the modern self as Expressive Individualism.

Dr. Trueman said this term, coined by an American sociologist in the 1990s, refers to “the way we think about ourselves in modern society, the normative notion of the self, is one where our inner feelings are critical to our identity, critical to who we are; our ability to express those inner feelings is therefore essential to what we might dub as ‘social authenticity.’” This has opened the Pandora’s Box of societies sexual attitudes and political policies which are contrary to who God declares that we were created to be. Guided by our inner feelings and not by God’s truth is an acceptance of the devil’s taunt, “You will not die. Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)

Our meaning, our nature, comes not from how we feel about ourselves inside, but who our God created us to be, and who our Lord Jesus redeemed by His precious blood. We are created male or female in the very image of God and made God’s redeemed child through faith in Christ. This is who you are by God’s pure grace apart from any inner feelings you have about yourself. You are loved with an everlasting love beyond anything you feel or think of yourself. Hold to this truth and live each day in its meaning. For in our Lord God your life does have meaning.

Good Morning

Good Morning March 12

In college classes various books are assigned. It is not uncommon for a professor to expect a number of chapters to be digested in a day or two. We manage to do it. We put in the time it takes. We want to understand the material and get the grade in the class. We’ve all done it, even though we may be well past that routine. Our academic and even entertainment reading is good, but it also must be balanced with the Scripture. With everything else we have to do we sometimes find it hard to give time to God’s word. Besides, He isn’t standing over us like a college professor. Yet it is only Scripture that balances all else that we read. It is only Scripture that corrects the errors we read elsewhere. Books can be very helpful, but only one book is the guide for discerning truth and error in all the rest. Solomon had access to all that the world had to give, yet he found only one source of true wisdom. “The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails-given by one Shepherd.”(Ecclesiastes 12:11) The words of our Lord are those “firmly embedded nails”.

Good Morning

Good Morning December 27

Luke chapter two has the beautiful account of Jesus birth which we read each Christmas time. The same chapter goes on with His being blessed by Simeon and Anna while still an infant. Then the chapter ends with Jesus in the Temple at 12 years of age. Chapter three picks up with the ministry of John the Baptist and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. We are not told anything about Jesus life between ages 12 and 30. There are a number of early writings that tried to fill in those details, but they have all been considered false and not included in Scripture. All we are told is that Jesus went with His parents back to Nazareth and was obedient to them. And that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”(2:52) We would like to know something of Jesus’ early life, but the Bible is not written to satisfy our curiosity. Rather as St. John tells about what has been included, “these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name.”(20:31) Having our curiosity satisfied may be interesting, but only God’s Word to our hearts gives life.

Good Morning

Good Morning June 27

When Jesus hung on the cross He prayed for the very ones who were crucifying Him. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” They were ignorant of God’s good purpose for their lives, and what He was doing for them in this sacrifice of His only begotten Son. In ignorance they were harming the very thing that was intended to give them life. This is Pride Month in our local community. Last weekend there was a great celebration of inclusiveness praising all those lifestyles that God has declared as wrong and destructive of the  good He has established for our lives. God is merciful. He is always ready to forgive those who turn to Him. Jesus even prayed for those acting in ignorance, but that doesn’t make it right. People are destroying so much of the good God wants for their lives. Throughout Scripture we see the truth that God’s blessing comes with obedience, but also that His judgment comes with disobedience. Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible for all people to come and find true life in Him. And He has given us His Holy Word to be our guide. We would do well to take it seriously.

Good Morning

Good Morning June 24

Do we believe God? Notice I didn’t ask if we believe IN God. The majority of people in this country say they do – in whatever form they conceive of Him. But I’m asking do we believe God? Do we believe what God tells us? We have the recorded revelation of His words in the Bible. One of the amazing things about His Scripture is that He shows the bad with the good. He doesn’t sugarcoat the mess people get themselves into when they ignore His good will for their lives. We are to learn from their failures as well as His direct teachings for our good. But do we believe God? In too many instances the answer is No. We either have no knowledge of what is in between the Bible’s covers, or pick and choose what we like and don’t like, or rationalize them away by saying we have gained so much more knowledge today than they had. There are all kinds of ways we choose to ignore God’s clear Word. The bottom like is that in many ways we simply do not believe God, and it is to our own detriment. 

Good Morning

Good Morning June 21

We sometimes like to watch the quiz show Jeopardy.  The other evening was a teen challenge night. The three contestants were exceptionally sharp kids. They knew the answers to questions on a wide variety of subjects. They tried to beat each other to be the first one to answer the question. Sometimes Biblical questions come up. That evening one question asked, “What are the first five words of the 23rd Psalm in the King James version of the Bible?” Now that is probably the best know of all passages in the Old Testament. “The Lord is my Shepherd” Not one of the young people even attempted an answer. I find this incredible sad. And it is not uncommon. Most contestants regardless of age usually shy away from Biblical questions. We have become a people learned in all fields of human knowledge, yet ignorant in the one field that really matters. We are smart people without the true wisdom to know what to do with the learning we have. Sad, incredible sad, and it will ultimately lead to our downfall.

Good Morning

Good Morning May 7

Many people read the Bible regularly. Many others have at least some familiarity it. But the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, only makes sense when seen from its central figure, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus only make sense when understood from who He is, the Son of God in human flesh. And God becoming incarnate in Jesus can only be understood by seeing the reason for which He came. We were separated from God by our sin, by our rebellion from His will. He had created us to be in fellowship with Him, but we had separated ourselves and there was nothing we could do to restore that fellowship. God had to do it by taking the just punishment we deserve into Himself, making atonement for our sins. That is what the cross is all about. So when we read the Bible the cross of Jesus Christ casts a long shadow over every page bringing it together as one book showing the depth of love God has for mankind to bring us back into fellowship with Himself.

Good Morning

Good Morning April 11

I have been reading the Bible for many years. I must admit in its 1500 or so pages there are still parts I don’t understand. The Bible is not like other books that one can read, get the flow of the story line, and move on. Oh, the Bible has a story line, a very important one. It is the story of mankind from creation through the conclusion of earth’s history. One who reads the Bible should have an overall understanding of this “story line”. But there is so much more in these pages. It is a book written by God’s Spirit through human authors. It is “God breathed” (II Timothy 3:16) and therefore is given to help us understand who we are, who God is, God’s purpose for our creation, how we have put up all the stumbling blocks (sins) so evident in our world, and what God has done to redeem His creation. It is God’s hand in the midst of all life, and I really don’t understand how it all works. But then I don’t have to. I have His assurance that He loves all mankind deeply, and  that He will not leave us until His good purpose is complete. I keep reading His Word. By His grace I do get to see a few new insight into our life together. And that is a great joy.

    

     

Good Morning

Good Morning March 2

I am currently reading a novel set in the time of Israel’s return from captivity in Babylon after many years of living among the pagan religions. The central figure is a rabbi who has been leading them for a number of years. His biggest challenge is keeping them centered in God Word. He studies it constantly himself, teaches it to the young men, and shares it regularly in their worship gatherings. He knows that obedience to God is the only way to have God’s blessing and care upon the people. We, too, emphasize the necessity of reading and rereading the Scriptures, God’s holy word. It is not an ancient and meaningless book that has been superseded by our sciences and better understandings of life today. We cannot understand life apart from seeing it as God intended it to be in His Word. Like the Jewish rabbi it is to be our daily guide and strength.