The Advent of Love – December 13, 2013

Suggested Reading: John 3

There is a popular misconception about God that seeps into conversations about Him, even among believers. It is the idea that God is different in the Old Testament and the New Testament, almost as if there were two different God’s in the Bible: the violent, angry God of plagues and conquest, and the humble, gentle God of healings and sacrificial love.

The story of Christmas is a love story that bridges the two Testaments and demonstrates the unity of Scripture. Perhaps no single Scripture illustrates this better than Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus.

Nicodemus, a Pharisee and member of the ruling council of the Jews, came to Jesus representing himself and others who recognized God’s authority in Jesus, but still had some questions. He was one of the foremost teachers in Israel and knew the Scriptures as well as anyone of his day. The Bible he read was our Old Testament, as the New Testament had not yet been written. In a sense, Jesus is explaining New Testament truths to an Old Testament scholar.

It is in this context that Jesus explains the necessity for the Father to send the Son. God gave His one and only Son because He loved the world so much. Jesus is surprised that this Old Testament scholar doesn’t understand these things already.

God’s Father-heart toward His children is filled with a fierce love. His love will go to amazing ends to keep His people safe, His message pure, and His purposes on track. His fierce love will brook no opposition and is often shown in power in the Old Testament. But this same fierce and compelling Father-heart is demonstrated in the New Testament by His willingness to humble Himself and endure suffering and pain on behalf of His children. It was the same divine love, expressed in different ways.

We desperately need help! We need a Saviour who will rescue us from the World, from the Devil, and from our own wayward hearts. God’s love will conquer all opposition... even the opposition that comes from within us.

“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10)

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Questions:

In what ways have you sensed or seen God’s love for you recently?

How have you been resisting God’s love? How can you live as one loved today?

The Invitation

Come...

Come to me...

Come away with me...

Can you hear the invitation?

God calls to us. The heavens are His handiwork showing forth His brilliance and power. The birds sing His praises. The mountains and the seas demonstrate His awesome strength. Creation is a canvas upon which He masterfully paints His attributes, wooing us to Himself.

Every day it pours forth speech. Night after night it whisperingly reminds us of the glory, beauty, creativity, and love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The eternally existent Triune God invites us to join with Him. They beckon us to come, sit at Their feet and learn from Them. We, like Mary, can choose the one needful thing. To sit with Them and listen—to commune with Them.

All too often, I hear other voices—pressing, strident voices—demanding my time and attention. The needs are so great! The pain and despair so loud! All too easily, my head turns away from my Master, my Lover, and I busy myself with the work. The needs are real and there is SO much work to be done. I hurry and scurry to get it all done; frustrated with those who don’t share my sense of urgency.

Paul heard the voices. He saw the needs. He worked hard for the Gospel. He also knew what it was to walk with the Spirit. It is through Paul’s example and letters that we learn most about the Holy Spirit. Paul was compelled by the love of God and filled and controlled by the Spirit. There were times when the Spirit led Paul away from ministry opportunities. Paul followed the Spirit into the desert.

Jesus too heard the voices. He knew the pressure of work and the expectations of men. Jesus showed us how to live in the midst of this. Very early in the morning, when it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed. He often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus could do nothing apart from the Father. The Son of God, emptied Himself and took on the very nature of a servant, was born, lived, and died, as one of us. He made a way—through His life, death, and resurrection—for us boldly approach the throne of grace. He showed us how a human life can be lived in union with the Father, and the Holy Spirit gives us all that we need for life and godliness.

This day, let us choose to heed the call. Let us answer the invitation of our Lover. Let us say, “I am my beloved’s and He is mine!” Let us join with Mary, and sit at the feet of our Jesus. Let us join with Paul and let the Spirit fill and control us, leading us wherever He will. Let us join with Jesus, and withdraw to a quiet place to spend time with the Father.

Fear and Love

John tells us that true love casts out fear. He goes on to say that in perfect love there is no fear. (1 Jn. 4:18) I guess my love is not perfect, because I find myself struggling with fear today.

This is a pretty rare experience for me. I am a generally confident guy who goes through life with a glass half full perspective, but there are a few things in my life at the moment that have brought up fear in me. It is so unfamiliar to me, that I couldn't have named it until today.

I was walking through the fields today, talking with God. I was asking Him to help me understand what has been driving me toward the old cisterns lately. Suddenly, it was crystal clear. I realized that I am afraid. I have been trying to escape from the pain of fear. The revelation seemed to come from outside of me, but I knew immediately that it was correct. Naming it allowed me to feel it and I suddenly had tears in my eyes. 

The things I am fearing are not fantasies, they are based in real circumstances I am facing. But that does not make them real. I have been more and more convinced lately that the future has no actual existence, and when I attempt to live in the imagined future, I can not really meet God there. God lives in the NOW. He is the I AM. He is always NOW! So, here in the present is where I must meet Him and where my love for Him must be perfected. His love for me is already perfect and total.

All of this is complicated by the fact that I no longer believe that God promises to deliver us in the triumphalist way that I was taught as a child. God does not promise to deliver us from suffering. He does not unfailingly rescue His children from poverty, disease, war, abuse, etc... I have seen too much pain and loss to believe there is a prayer, incantation, ritual, or service, which compels God to act in a particular way. Such beliefs are more akin to magic and shamanism, where the supernatural world can be manipulated or bent to our will, than to the Biblical picture of a fiercely free, all powerful, and independent God who does whatever He wills. 

I do love and trust this God, but I do not know what He will do. He may not deliver me from the things I fear. He hasn't always in the past. Does this make Him untrustworthy?  No, but it forces me to redefine my trust and face my fears. Do I trust God or trust that He will deliver a particular outcome. Do I trust His person and character? I feel like I am losing my faith in prayer as a productive force, but growing deeper in my love and dependence on the God who actually answers prayer. 

He met me today in the fields. He showed me my heart. We talked. He did not promise to deliver me, in fact, He did not directly address the questions I asked. But He was there. That's worth something. My fear is still with me, but it is diminished somewhat by His presence. Perhaps my love is being perfected even through this.

We read in Hebrews that Jesus was made perfect through suffering. (Heb. 2:10) What makes me think that my path will be more comfortable than His?

Awakening to an Invitation

I woke up early this morning.  As I lay there in bed trying to get back to sleep, I felt something.  At first it was just a sort of vague curiosity.  A sort of wondering feeling.  It was so subtle that I only became aware of it as it begin to coalesce into a longing, a longing still quite vague.  There was no distinct object of my longing, my desire.  Then it morphed again from a longing to an invitation.  That was when I began to awake to the source of the longing and the invitation.  God was at it again.

I got up and headed downstairs with my journal and Bible in hand.  I knew that I was hungry for God, that the hunger was from God.  I knew that I wanted to meet with Him.  As I opened my journal I saw that it had been many days since my last entry.  I silently repented of my neglect of this, my most important relationship.  It's not that I had not been praying, or even experiencing God in worship, contemplation, nature, or His children, but it had been weeks since I had taken the time to sit quietly with Him. 

In that moment I realized that I was in danger of talking more about God than with Him.  I was subtly sliding into a life about God but not with God.  As I sat on the couch I was desperate for His presence.  I sat quietly for a time and then began to write and pray.  I wrote about my heart and shared with Him my thoughts and invited His input.  I didn't feel anything except alone.  The quietness of the sleeping house broken only by the ticking of the clock. 

Gradually I began to be filled with memories and with gratitude.  I remembered how far He had carried me.  A growing wonder dawned on me as I realized anew the miracle of knowing Him.  I tried to remember why the sins of my youth had seemed like a good idea.  I praised Him for rescuing me and for healing the pain in my soul.  I needlessly apologized yet again for spending so many years fleeing from Him, the Lover of my Soul. 

Then I was filled by a desire to love.  I felt a deep desire to be an agent of His love, for others to be healed, for others to experience the fullness of joy, the abundance of life, that I have found.  I prayed for and wondered about those in my life.  How could I love them better?  How could I help them to find the blissful surrender to the Lover whose unrequited love for them never diminishes or fades.  Then I was moved again to wonder and to praise at the fact of His presence in my life and the love that He has lavished on me.

As I closed my journal and reached for my Bible, I wondered where to read.  I did not want to study the scriptures, I wanted to meet with my lover, the one who speaks through them.  As the Book fell open on my lap my eyes fell upon Isaiah 35.  From the first verse I knew that this too was a gift from my Lover, my Father, my Brother.  He spoke to me through the passage about redemption and healing. 

He met with me.  He loves me still.  He speaks to me still in the silence and in the scriptures.  He awakens me.  He woos me.  He draws me to Him again and again.

Technique and Methodology

I find myself wondering about our fascination with technique and methodology this morning. It seems that every problem from a difficult marriage to church planting among the unreached has been, or is being, reduced to technique. The reason that your marriage isn't going well is that you haven't discovered or applied the "5 secrets of a happy marriage". The reason that your sex life isn't satisfying or intimate is that you haven't read the most recent issue of Cosmopolitan or Men's Health to discover the "6 steps to sexual satisfaction". The reason that the billions of unreached people haven't embraced Christ is that we've been doing it wrong all these years and this NEW and IMPROVED method of evangelism and church planting will do the trick; just buy this book and follow these "10 principles to lead Muslims to Jesus".

Is it all really that simple? Can our relationships be reduced to arithmetic and formulas? Can the interactions between souls, human or divine, be quantified and mechanized? Can we study ourselves into love, can we strategize ourselves into intimacy? Do we really believe that we are so far superior to those who have gone before us? Do we really believe that we have finally found the method(s) that will solve our problems? Or perhaps there is something else going on here. Perhaps this is all just a way of creating or sustaining the illusion of control.

If the answers to perennial problems, spiritual or relational, can be reduced to techniques or formulas then if we learn the right methods we will be in control of the outcomes. All we have to do is learn the right parenting techniques and our kids will be healthy and happy, the right marriage techniques and we'll have a problem free marriage. But all of this misses the point. We are not in control. We were never designed to be in control. We are not the Controller, the Creator and the Sustainer of the Universe. God is. We are invited to walk with Him and to talk with Him. We are invited to work alongside Him.

The emphasis on method and formulas flows from the Enlightenment. This period of history gave us modern science and the scientific method. I am grateful for science and all that we have today as a result of the pursuit of understanding how the universe works. I could not right this blog if someone had not figured out how to push electrons around. My point is not that techniques and methods are bad, but that they are limited. When we are dealing with material objects they are extremely useful, but we have allowed this way of thinking to creep into our thinking about all aspects of our lives.

Science is great as a far as science can go, but science alone cannot answer the really important questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What is the point of all this? Science is helpful for understanding and manipulating the physical world, but there are other realities, more important ones. We are not just chemicals and reactions. We are souls. After all you can't put love in a test tube, and you can't quantify a snuggle with your kids. When we try to reduce our interactions with each other and God down to technique, we dehumanize those that we are using our methods on. We treat them as objects in our experiment rather than human souls to be interacted with, or in the case of God, a divine soul to be pursued, loved, and known.

In our pursuit of technical perfection we miss real relationship. We miss real intimacy. We miss real love. We miss the the real heart of the matter.

Losing Focus

Yesterday I was humbled by worship yet again. I was standing at a church service when God ambushed me again through the words of a song. He has a tendency to sneak past my defenses as I worship in song. This time it was the line "there is one great love" from David Crowder's version of "O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing". All of a sudden, as I was singing those words, I was convicted and comforted all at the same time.

I was struck by my adulterous heart and how prone it is to wander from the God I love. (And even as I type I recognize that those last few words are from "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing", the residual effects of a previous worship ambush). I lose focus SO easily. There in that moment, I was reminded that there is one great love, one consuming passion, that drives me, or at least should drive me. I was reminded of how I had spent the last 2 nights staying up WAY too late playing a video game. The video game was not the problem as there is nothing particular objectionable in the game I was playing, but rather as I was playing in the wee hours of the morning I was aware of the time and that I should really turn it off. There was a voice in my head saying something like, "Is this really that important? You'll be sorry tomorrow. You'll be tired and cranky. How will you love your kids well? How will you love your wife well? How will you be able to spend time with me?" I am not confident enough to say that it was the voice of God clearly speaking those words in my head, rather an impression in my soul that when verbalized takes on those words.

The interesting thing was my response in that moment. I simply blocked out the impression. I choose to ignore the wisdom of God. Sure enough, the next morning I was tired and cranky and sorry I had stayed up so late. But, here's the irony, I did the same thing again the next night. And again, the next night, I blocked out the voice, like a child putting his fingers in his ears and shouting, "LA LA LA LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" I decided to do what I wanted to do, what felt good at the moment, regardless of the consequences. I praise God that my addictions are relatively less damaging than the ones I used to indulge, but the problem of my heart is just the same. I lose focus much too easily and have a proclivity for willfulness. I say I want to pursue God and to learn to hear His voice and obey, and yet I am prone to wander.

So, during worship, when I was singing, God reminded me that there is "one great love: Jesus" and that He loves me, even when I am a willful knucklehead. He really is worth listening too. He really is worth pursuing. He really is my one great love. I just forget to remember.