How Great is Your Love?

Last Sunday my pastor, in good pastorly fashion gave a sermon about Jesus' death on the cross. It was actually the third of a four part sermon that has been following the last seven words of Jesus on the cross. This last one spoke about Jesus' word "It is Finished" (John 19:30.) Part of what he had to say was to how Jesus spoke it. With what emotion he said it. It wasn't a cry of relief, "Thank god this is over!" It wasn't a cry of exhaustion, "I can't believe I made it, I'm going to keel over and die now." It wasn't a cry of quitting, "I can't go, I can't take this anymore, on so now I'm finished."
The cry that he gave was a cry that said, Mission Accomplished. I have finished what I came to do. And as my pastor explained, Jesus didn't actually say three words. "It is Finished" he spoke one word in the Hebrew language, which was not the common word for saying you have finished something. The word he used is a word that was found written across the scrolls carrying billing information. The word Jesus said literally means, "Paid in full".

Jesus didn't say on the cross, Ahah, this is the end, I'm done. He said, I have paid the debt in full. Now, Father, now that I have paid the debt, now I commit my spirit into your hands. (Luke 23:46)

This is such a big deal. People like to say that Jesus was crucified like a common criminal, but he wasn't. Crucifixion was saved for the worst of the worst. the utterly lowest of criminals. That is how terrible, how awful crucifixion was. It was the worst sentence a criminal could receive. That alone would be enough for any of us to cry out for our God to save us... but Jesus didn't do that, he said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34) As he hung in excruciating pain, being mocked and screamed at, he pleaded and begged for THIER lives, not his own even though with one word, one breath he could have saved himself and condemned us all. Knowing that, he begged for our lives, and did not save himself because he knew that only he could pay this debt. That is how great his love
is, and even beyond that. Because when you think about all the troubles we face in our lives, no matter what we always have a God and Savior, a comforter to turn to for strength. We have someone to lean on. But when Jesus was on that Cross and God turned his face away ("My God my God, why have you forsaken me?") Jesus no longer had anyone to receive strength and encouragement from. He was all alone. At that moment, he didn't say say "God come back, I can't do this on my own." He didn't say that because in order to save us, he couldn't say that, he loved us so much that he faced what he faced all alone.

But Jesus' love for us was far greater than just (as if crucifixion wasn't enough) being crucified for all of our sins over every generation. Jesus' love for us started years before that. Jesus' love for us can be seen simply by agreeing to come to this world.

Before Jesus could Pay Our Debt In Full he first had to lead a sinless life. Contemplate that for a moment. It is so hard for us to lead just a sinless day, let alone a sinless life! Jesus didn't just live a single day as a perfect and sinless man. He lived his whole life as a sinless and perfect man. Well we live in a fallen world, well we're not the son of god, well... Does not the bible say that Jesus became a man? As a man, Jesus was subject to all of the temptations to sin as we ourselves are. Jesus was not exempt, Jesus had to CHOOSE to lead a perfect life.

That a lone is such a difficult task that NO ONE else has been or ever will accomplish it. As it has been said before, becoming a Christian is easy, living as a Christian is hard. But Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life. He "fought the good fight" he accomplished what no one else could. That is how great his love is for us. When you think about it. Love has to have been the key. How could anyone possibly accomplish that task unless his love was so great, that his top priority was not for himself, ever, not for a single day, it was how to save a nation of people. He loved us so much that he lived the perfect life because he knew we could not, and unless someone did, we would all be doomed. As a man He loved God so much that his every desire was to fulfill God's will for him, and to share the joy he received from obeying God with us.

Jesus' prayer in the Garden before his death really shows his love for God and for us. Found in John 17

"Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Jesus Prays for His Disciples

6 "I have revealed you [a] to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of [b] your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by [c] that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

13 "I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by [d] the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
Jesus Prays for All Believers

20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."


Love is the key. I do not think that we can fully appreciate what God has done until we fully appreciate the scope and depth of his love. This is a concept that is so huge, that I think our gratitude for Jesus' sacrifice will continually grow forever.

I think to that when we begin to appreciate how great Jesus' love for us was, and is, then our own love for others will grow. As our love grows, so too will we in God's love and in our christian life. The more we let Love take hold in our heart, the more that we can begin to see its fruit in our lives, forgiveness comes easier, denying ourselves and helping others becomes the desire of your heart, not just something that you should do. 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 spectacularly sums up what love does for us and in our lives.

"If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Love really is the key.

Quid Pro Quo?

The other day, I and a group of women were in a discussion pertaining to following God's laws, and subsequently how following (or not following) them and affects how we view our current circumstances.

One area we discussed caught my attention and amazingly enough as I read my Bible over the course of the week, some things popped out at me.

As Christians we try to follow the Bible, do good, live right, etc... basically, stay out of trouble. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, in fact it is what we should strive to do, sometimes we get caught up in a fallacy. A fallacy that because we do as God says, or because we follow the Bible, nothing bad should happen to us. After all, the Bible says in Joshua 1:8

"Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

It also says in Psalm 1:1-3

"1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers"

This type of verse is found in many other places in the Bible, speaking about how God will prosper those who follow him.

It is easy to see how we might "get lost" somewhere along the way. As *Dan Denton from Kingdom Principles For Successful Living put it...

"By studying the Scriptures, you will come to understand that the prosperity of God is multi-dimensional. It is God's will for us to prosper financially, to be in health, and for our souls to prosper (3 John 2). This is the three-part blessing of being obedient to His will and commands...We were not designed to live with strife, fear, danger, poverty, sickness, hate and all the other results which go with the law of sin and death."

Now before you write yourself off the list of those that might fall under this mind set, I want you to think about it for a moment. Have you ever had something bad happen to you, and you asked God why? Why did this happen? How could this happen to me? I'm a good person, so why me?

What did I do wrong?

Who has not said this before?

That question, "What did I do wrong?" , is a result of the belief that because you follow God's teachings nothing bad should happen to you. However, as soon as you put it into these words it begins to seem a little silly. After all, does not the Bible also say in Matthew 5:45

"...He causes his sun to rise on the eviland the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

So how could we ever think that would would be exempt from bad circumstances or situations. Amazingly enough, this silly little belief is one that is well rooted, and I say this perhaps wrongly, in all of us. As I said just a moment ago, who has not said, "what did I do wrong?" This is almost a knee-jerk reaction to circumstances that have gone awry.

One reason for this reaction is because of where our minds are. We have all grown up being punished for things we have done wrong. This punishment was meant to teach us that what we did was bad, and we shouldn't do it again. We now have a set standard to go by. We do something wrong we get punished. Its that simple.

I find that many Christians, knowingly or not, tend to carry this standard into how God interacts with us. Which seems utterly ridiculous when you think about trying to squeeze God's vastness into a tiny little man-made box. This of course, is beside the point (at least at the moment). The point is simply that it is very, very, easy for even an extremely intelligent Christian to fall into this category of thinking simply because from before we can remember this standard of wrong=punishment is how we learned and progressed.

Now God can't literally come down and slap us on the back of the hand... well he could, but he doesn't. This doesn't mean that God is a static God, sitting up in Heaven watching what goes on below. No way! God interacts with his people, God teaches his people, even to this day.

He teaches us. Ahah... here comes the part where we try to stuff God into a little box. Remember how we learned right from wrong growing up? Well this is how we try to relate that to God.

We read in the Bible that if we follow God's rules and his "way" then we will prosper. So if bad things are happening, and we're not prospering, the logical conclusion would then be that we are doing something wrong! Hence the question, "what did I do wrong?!"

See? Not so ridiculous anymore, is it?

Here's the thing we've got to remember, the ultimate comforting thought. God does not act like us. He doesn't fit into our little man-made box. He doesn't "punish" us to teach us a lesson. Why? Well think of it this way. When we do something wrong, what is that? Sin. Another lesson that goes back to our pacifier days. Sin=doing something wrong=Bad=punishment.

God doesn't punish us for our sin. Not that he can't, but he doesn't.

Why?

Because Jesus already paid the price for our sin. God has already punished Jesus for our sin. He can't punish us as well, or Jesus' death would have been pointless. Because the price for sin is death.

So we know that when bad things happen God is not punishing us for something we did wrong because:

1) When Jesus climbed up on that cross and took all of our sin upon himself, he got punished for it. He has already taken our punishment for our sin, all of it, everything we did in the past, will do in the future, and maybe even are doing now. Jesus was already punished for that.

And,

2) The punishment for sin is death. (Romans 6:23) You are not dead, therefore, you are not being punished for something that you have done wrong, i.e. your sin.

Now to wrap up. The whole point is that when bad things are going on in your life, circumstances aren't what you would hope them to be, and your searching for a reason to why this is happening to you, STOP as soon as you think "what did I do wrong?" Because that is not the answer. God does not run on a Quid Pro Quo basis when it comes to sin.

We need to remember that God sends rain on both Christians and Non-Christians a like, we are not exempt from suffering simply because we follow God's laws, or at least try to. As **Timothy J. Keller put it,

"If God himself was willing to become involved in terrible suffering of life... then we should not think ourselves exempt... Jesus suffered, not that we might not suffer, but that when we suffer we could become like him."

Just take a moment and re-read that quote because there are some extremely powerful messages there and I really want you to be able to take it in.

The first is this:

1) We should not think ourselves exempt

This speaks to the whole purpose of this note. Our natural reaction to finding out that the bad things that happen are not a result of something we did wrong would then be to ask, "Well then, why me?!" Why you? Its not just you, its everyone. As The bible says in Matthew 5:45 everyone sees sunshine, and everyone sees rain. There is no distinction between good people and bad people, and good things and bad things. Jesus, God's own SON, perfect and holy, was not exempt from harsh times and circumstances, so then why should we be?

Some people might say, "well then why did he even come? wasn't that the whole point of his coming, and his suffering?"

The second message I'd like to bring to your attention is this:

2) Jesus' suffering is an example to us.

In reading the Bible we can learn how Jesus handled bad circumstances and situations and see his humbleness, his grace, and his faith during these times. Because Jesus suffered, we have something that we can look toward to show us how to act and react when bad things befall us. When we suffer we don't have to get bogged down in the disparity of it.

We can learn from Jesus while we suffer, because he suffered first and showed us how to live in a way pleasing to God during those times.
Isn't that neat? We no longer have to thing, "what did I do wrong?" or "why me?" Instead, we have something we can turn our eyes to. We have a freedom we didn't have before. The suffering your going through, its not about you! Its not about something you did wrong, its not because God has some grudge against you. It is simply a fact of life. Yet, Habitual as it may be, it gives us an opportunity to learn how we can become more like Jesus. This opportunity is only open to us if we are in a situation of "suffering". Now I'm not going to go so far as to say suffering is a blessing, but I will say that a weight can be lifted off of you if you think of it as an opportunity to become closer to Jesus. Wouldn't you like that? Being closer to Jesus? Isn't that what we strive for?

Think about it.


*Copyright 1987, by Daniel R. Denton, Beaufort, SC. http://www.prosperinlife.com/
** Copyright 2003, by Timothy J. Keller, and Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York, NY.

No Arms, No Legs, No Worries.

Reap What you Sow...

"If you save a life, you must take responsibility for it."

This quote is from the theatrical trailer for the movie "Defiance", directed by Edward Zwick and due to release here tomorrow. While the trailer has piqued my interest in the movie itself, it is the above quote that captured my attention the most. (trailer seen here: link)

It occurred to me as I heard this, how powerful that statement really is. If you save someone, you are now responsible not only for yourself, but also for that person and everything that comes with it. If someone wanted to interpret it to mean you are responsible for their lively hood, their actions, their well-being, and their protection, they absolutely could interpret it that way.

So the question is, are you willing to take up that mantel?

What about all of the Christians out there? In Christ saving us from the depths of hell, is he now not responsible for our lives? Does he not say in his word that he will take care of us, that he has a plan for us, that we are not to worry about ourselves, because he is in control and we are in his hands? Pretty amazing isn't it? Pretty cool to know that someone else has responsibility for us, and we are not on our own.

Yet, how many of us follow Christ's example in our own lives? When we become "fishers of men," and we baptize people in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost as commanded of us in the Great Commission (found in Matthew 28), when speak to others about God, do we follow through? In the parable of the sower Jesus tells us the story of a farmer who scatters his seed. This parable has been told countless times and most of us have heard it more than we are happy about. We know that all the seeds are eaten, choked out, or withered away except for the seeds that land in good soil. The good soil signifies people on Earth who let their hearts be opened by God and become born again Christians.

I think, however, that as many times as we have heard the message, we are forgetting an extremely important part.

Jesus says that "The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy" Matthew 13:20 How many of you have shared the gospel with someone who has received it with great joy? Who has not shared in the joy of a lost soul come to Christ? But wait, this is a seed that has fallen on rocky ground... that seed does not become a plant!

"But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful" Mathew 13:21,22

So you see, not everyone who receives the message with joy, keeps the message with joy.

When we scatter the seed, do we know where those seeds have fallen? Of course not, we are not the omniscient ones. God is! Do we not then have a responsibility to keep checking up on those we "lead" to Christ? Do we not have a responsibility to make sure that those share the message with, who receive it with joy in their new infant faith, are not left to face the sinful deceit and persecution of the world by themselves? Who of us have not had rough places in our life that, without the encouragement of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, would not have fall away and despaired.

Too much of our focus is on "Saving" people, and not enough on following through with that. What good will it do if you preach on the streets and "save" ten unbelievers if the seed that you scattered landed in a rocky or weedy place?

Matthew 28:19,20

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

So go as God commands, and spread his word, plant his seed, sow the peoples of the Earth, but follow through. Continue to teach those you "lead" to Christ even after they have accepted the message so that they will not be choked out, or wither away. Take responsibility for those whom God uses you to save.