Archive for the ‘Love’ Category

I wrote this a few nights ago:

So I’m sitting at home on my deck, enjoying a cigar and a the calm of night. As I look across my plastic deck table to an area normally unoccupied I see a toilet. Odd, right? Normally the only thing on this wall is a window and maybe a spider-web.

I mean not having any sort of background as to how it got there one might wonder, “Why do they have a toilet on their deck? Is it functional?” Both of these are entirely legitimate as this is not a standard scenario.

Now, I’m under the impression that generally, in a newer neighborhood, there would exist rules and regulations against this sort of thing. However, these sorts of rules do not exist in my neighborhood.

Anyway, this toilet on my deck got me thinking (don’t they always?)

How similar is a toilet on our deck to something else in our lives? It’s out of place, it should be taken care of, if I were to have a BBQ people would certainly ask questions. What if I moved the toilet to the front porch instead?

Anyone who walked or drove by could see it. People would more than likely talk about it, maybe not to us, but rest assured, there would be some sort of talking. Sure, some neighbors will ask about it, those that know us and are comfortable enough would even offer to help get rid of it. Though, to offer to help get rid of first involves some sort of background. Why it’s there, if we do in fact intend to move it and so on.

So, what if the toilet were actually some sort of deep spiritual issue? Some may hide it deep in their soul (the deck) so only those closest to us might see or know about it. Then there are those issues we wear on our sleeves (the porch), those that everyone knows about and we choose to not try and hide them.

Either way, no one is helping you with that toilet without first seeing it, then asking about it, right?

I know this is a ridiculous comparison but think about it. How often do we expect to help someone with some deep spiritual hurt without first finding out why they’re hurt or attempt to help someone out of a rut without finding how they fell into the rut to begin with? This is an important step to actually helping someone.

I’ll refer back to a post I made a while back about shutting up and listening. There are plenty of scriptures to point to the idea that we should listen and assess, ask questions and actually pay attention to the answers before we try and even speak.

In a nutshell: you cannot begin to help someone or be helped yourself until there is some amount of background. To help without any background is like throwing a dollar of gas in an empty tank. It may get you a little further but, certainly not to your desitnation.

You cannot claim to truly love others without listening, and helping.

Goodnight.

In the fifth grade we did a study on plants, you may have done something similar, maybe you were smarter than me, maybe you did it sometime around third grade in a far more advanced school than myself. Regardless, we did the study. Everyone worked in groups, which I liked, and were given specific instructions as to how we would treat this seed we were given.

Some of us were given Styrofoam cups with soil, some simply received wet paper towels. Some were instructed to play soothing music, some were not to water the plant but give it sunlight, while others were instructed to water it with provide no sunlight, some students were even instructed to speak in a degrading manner to the plant, I’m not making this up. There was one group that was supposed to give it everything it needed, but to put it in rocky soil. There was only one group, perhaps the ‘control’ group, that did everything correctly.

In the Gospels Jesus’ disciples recount a parable that Jesus had told about a sower. This sower, being particularly messy, tossed seeds about and dropped a lot of them in various places. Some of the seed fell on the road and birds ate it, some fell on rocky ground and, while it had the other necessary elements, it had nowhere to root into and, therefore, it died. More seeds ended up in the thorns, (seriously – a very careless farmer – I mean I’m picturing this guy just waving an empty seed bag around) and it was choked out as it tried to grow, while there was some seed that made it onto good soil, which is the goal of any good sower, right?

The seed that made it onto good soil rooted and grew, producing a great amount of grain, as is the goal. Now, I’m no great theologian but, I know Jesus didn’t just tell pointless stories like some old grandfatherly figure. No, his stories always had a point. In the book of Matthew, Matthew records Jesus explaining the parable because, Jesus knew people are pretty dense, and, sometimes you just have to spell it out.

Not to discount the scripture but, in this case I’m going to skip over all of the seeds that fell in places and eventually died bearing no fruit. Instead, I will focus on ones that fell on good ground. Jesus explained that the seed was in this case ‘The Word of the Kingdom’ and it failed in all those cases because it was unable to take root. This seed on the soil is like the Gospel falling on the ears of one who understands it, then taking root in that. In this case the Gospel is rooting itself in understating of truth and therefore being spread to others. This is good; by the way, the spreading of the Gospel it is the ultimate goal.

I’m going to take it a little further. If the Gospel, God’s word, his good news must fall in a place where it takes root, and at that it must root into something solid – how much more does the rest of our life need to be well rooted? Think about it, where are you rooting your life? Your friendships, career, hobbies, marriage – all of which are rooted somewhere. Where are they rooted?

In every aspect of our lives we need to be finding somewhere solid and fertile to be rooted. A good soil, if you will, is imperative to growth, without it the seed just withers away… a waste. Just imagine that old sower, tossing seed about carelessly onto the road and into the thorn bush, watching the birds eat it up, all from the comfort of a park bench.

A life is a pitiful thing to waste, so why feed it to birds? Why not let it root? I’ll leave you with a good place to start; find yourself rooted in love. Jesus said that the number one commandment is to love God with your entire being and then after that to love others. So get love, grasp love, embrace love.

For a moment, I will pretend I have people who read this. I’m going to part from what I intended to write about (the eternity of hope) to touch a topic that has been more present in my thoughts lately. I am involved with the Creative Team at my church and we have discussed a few times in the past couple weeks what does freedom mean. One, because we are revisiting the way a particular service we do each year is done – rather than focusing it in the way we have in the past we intend to focus on freedom and, what that means. Two, our church is almost to a point of financial freedom, that is, that we are about to be 100 percent free of debt. With that, we intend to do a sort of vision casting for what we need to now do, with our new financial freedom.

You see, with freedom comes responsibility – and this is where I will begin:

Being free of sin does not simply mean freedom to do as we please – as this is sin. It also should not imply that we are no longer capable of sin. The freedom in which we have been given is the freedom from the wage of sin –which is death.

It is, however, in freedom that we then find our greatest responsibility – life. With life being the ultimate gift that can be given we need to be sure that our lives are lived well. After all, it would be a terrible shame to come to the end of our life only to find we haven’t really lived at all.

So, freedom is life in the place of death. The responsibility of freedom, then, being that we should live our life in such a way that we honor God. Most every time freedom in Christ is mentioned the responsibility of such is introduced at the same time, a couple examples:

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” – Galatians 5:13 ESV

“Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” – 1 Peter 2:16 ESV

These two specific examples point in a good direction to find what a life well lived looks like. In Matthew the Pharisees ask Jesus to name the greatest commandment:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” – Matthew 22:36-40 ESV

In verse forty Jesus basically states that everything hinges around these commandments. All laws are fulfilled through the keeping of these two. All prophecies are based in this, love. If we can love God and if we can love others as ourselves we will live a life worth living. If we can love we would be this unstoppable force in bringing people to God. In feeding the hungry, in quenching the thirst of the thirsty, in welcoming the estranged, in clothing the naked, in visiting the sick, and in going to the imprisoned.

You see, the responsibility is love. Life is love. Forgetting about our own wants and desires and taking on God’s wants and desires. It’s a part of following God, it is following God. He is the source of love. He pours his love out on us in such abundance that we may love him back with it as well as turn around and love others.

God has poured out his love, breaking the chains of sin, driving out fear and leaving a trail of changed lives in its path.

So here it is. We have this eternal life, this love from God. This freedom, this responsibility; it isn’t an option but, it is something that must be done. We must love and, if we do it – there is nothing that cannot be done in the name of God.