Godly Fruit

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is not law." Galatians 5:22-23

What kind of fruit is produced in my life? Is it the sweet precious character of God that is produced? I know that an intimate relationship with Christ will change my heart and enable me to produce spiritual fruit and godly characteristics in us. The first character trait on the list above is love. I have shared before that when I heard a sermon on loving God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves that I asked God to teach me to love Him with all that I am. I didn't understand at the time what a love that was so encompassing looked like. I had believed the concept of God being more of an angry and distant Father than an Abba or personal Daddy. Because of that, I expected His answer to come in the form of admonitions. However, for over 4 weeks I was overwhelmed by daily lessons about His love for me. They came in the form of the Scriptures, sermons, books, encouragement, emails, praise music, and life events.

One of the most important lessons He teaches us is that our loving depends on the fact that He first loved us. It is only as we experience His love that we can begin to understand how to love Him and how to love others. I Corinthians 13 gives us a really clear picture of what godly love looks like. It is patient and kind, does not envy, does not boast, is not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, keeps no records of wrong, and does not delight in evil. It rejoices in the truth and seeks to protect, trust, hope and perseveres until the very end. It is not like the love our society has which is often selfish and manipulative and wanes when things get tough or the brain chemistry changes. God's love satisfies the love hunger in each of our hearts.

In loving us, God took the initiative. He demonstrated His love for us when we were His enemies and while we were still in bondage to our sin. He did this by sending Christ to live on earth and to die in our place for the sins we have committed. Christ invited sinners to live and walk with Him and many of them came. Even in His perfect holiness, something in Him invited them to live transparent lives before Him. When they had doubts they told Him. When they were prideful, they did not hide it. When they sinned they did it openly and He exhorted them to grow.

He demonstrated eternal love in that He loved in the face of adversity and hatred. He chose to love when in His humanity it caused Him great pain to do so. I wonder if we are really willing to walk with Him in such an intimate way that we can take the risk to initiate that kind of sacrificial love with others? Can we love in the face of hatred and adversity? Can we love when it hurts to do so?

We can't ever lose sight of the fact that loving God and loving people is intricately intertwined. Matthew 25 tells us that when we love people by meeting their needs we are actually demonstrating our love to God. We are also called to love non-Christians like He does – even while they are lost in their sin. We are called to love our enemies just like He did. John 13:34 gives us a new commandment to love others not as we love ourselves, but as He loves us.

Remember from the vine lesson that we can’t produce the fruit of the spirit ourselves. God produces it in us. No matter how hard we try we will never be able to muster a sacrificial godly love on our own. There will be times that we are too tired or too sick to have anything to give. There will be times that we are just too human and selfish to love as He loves, but He will produce it in us. I have been on mission trips in areas of Mexico where the dirt and the smells were hard to handle and yet have been able to hold and weep with hurting women. I had the privilege of holding a baby sick with aids even with the fear that disease evokes. I have been able to share the gospel when I felt timid and overwhelmed by the barriers of language, culture, experiences, and economic differences. I was able to teach in spite of extremely painful headaches and exhaustion.

I honestly don't understand this love thing. It will always be a mystery to me. I can walk into a room simply out of obedience with nothing to give, only to have God fill be with a passionate love that wells up from deep inside and compels me to do what is unnatural for me. I may wipe away a stranger's tears, share Christ boldly or exhort a stranger in a strange land to cling to God who loved them enough to have died for them…but then there are days I walk by a homeless person unwilling to make eye contact and pushing down harsh judgments of which I am ashamed. I hope we all learn to sit at Christ's feet and experienced His love at a level deep enough that it compels us to love Him through obedience and to love others sacrificially in ways that are not natural for us.

Prayer: Father, thank you for your love and for giving us the ability to love you and other people through your Holy Spirit. Fill us with your passion and the desire to love sacrificially and consistently. Fill us with you love and the fruit of Your holy Spirit. Amen.

The Fruit of His Spirit

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Galatians 5:22-23

What kind of fruit do you produce with your life? Is it the sweet precious character of God that is produced? In the last blog we saw that an intimate relationship with Christ would change our hearts and produce spiritual fruit or godly characteristics in us. The first character trait on the list above is love. You might want to read some of the following passages for more understanding: Romans 5:8, I John 4:19, Matthew 22:37-40, John 13:34, 35 and Romans 5:5.

I shared before that when I had heard a sermon on loving God with all of our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves that I asked God to teach me to love Him like that. I didn't understand at the time what a love that was so encompassing looked like. I had had somehow developed the concept of God being more of an angry and distant Father than an Abba--personal Daddy. Because of that, I expected His answer to come in the form of admonitions. However, for over 4 weeks I was overwhelmed by daily lessons about His love for me. They came in the form of scripture, sermons, books, encouragement, emails, praise music, and life events.

One of the most important lessons He taught me was that my loving depended on the fact that He first loved me. It is only as we experience His love that we can begin to understand how to love. I Corinthians 13 presents us with a really clear picture of what godly love looks like. It is patient and kind. It does not envy. I doesn’t boast. It isn’t rude or self-seeking. It is not easily angered and doesn’t keep records of wrong doing. It doesn’t delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It seeks to protect, trust, hope and persevere. It is not like the love our society has, which is often selfish and manipulative. In particular, God's love satisfies the love hunger in each of our hearts.

It is helpful to know that in loving, God took the initiative. He demonstrated His love for us when we were His enemies and were still in bondage to our sin by sending Christ to live and die for us. Christ invited sinners to live and walk with Him and they came. Even in His perfect holiness, something in Him invited them to live transparently before Him. When they doubted they told Him. When they were prideful they did not hide it. When they sinned He exhorted them to grow. He demonstrated eternal love in that He even loved them in the face of adversity and hatred. He chose to love when in His humanity it caused Him great pain to do so. I can’t help but wonder if we walk with Him in a continuous intimate way, if we too could take the risk to initiate that kind of sacrificial love with others? Would we also be able to love in the face of hatred and adversity? I don’t think we should ever lose sight of the fact that loving God and loving people is intricately intertwined. Matthew 25 tells us that when we love people by meeting their needs we are actually demonstrating our love to Him. We are also called to love non-Christians in the same manner He does – even while they are lost in their sin. We are called to love our enemies like He did. John 13:34 makes it so clear that Jesus gave us a new commandment to love others not as we love ourselves, but as He loves us.

Remember from the vine lesson that we cannot produce the fruit of the spirit ourselves. God produces it in us. No matter how hard we try we will never be able to muster a sacrificial godly love on our own. There will be times that we are too tired or too sick to have anything to give. There will be times that we are just too human and selfish to love as He loves, but He will produce it in us if we yield to His Spirit. I have been on mission trips in areas of Mexico where the dirt and the smells were hard to handle and yet been able to hold and weep hurting women and sick children who were covered with snot and had rashes all over their little bodies. I even held a baby sick with aids with all the fear that that particular disease evokes. I have been able to share the gospel when I felt timid and overwhelmed at the barriers of language, culture, experiences, and economic differences. I have been able to teach in spite of extremely painful headaches and exhaustion. I honestly don't understand this love thing. It will always be a mystery to me. I can walk into a room simply out of obedience with nothing to give, only to have God fill me with a passionate love that wells up from deep inside and compels me to do what is unnatural for me. I may wipe away a stranger's tears, share Christ boldly or exhort a stranger in a strange land to cling to God who loved them enough to have died for them.

Have you sat at Christ's feet and experienced His love at a level deep enough that it compels you to love Him through obedience? Has it compelled you to love others sacrificially and in ways that are not natural for you?

Prayer: Father, thank you for your love and for giving us the ability to love you and other people through your Holy Spirit. Fill us with your passion and the desire to love sacrificially and consistently. Amen.

Bearing Fruit

"…Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me…" Read John 15:1-17

Christ often used physical pictures to teach spiritual truths. Because of this, a passage can become more meaningful when we look at both the physical picture and then the spiritual truths. In the beginning of the entire passage, Christ, the God-man, calls His disciples “friends” when He is talking to them. That word had never been used before in describing a man's relationship with God. It is indicative of the deep intimacy, which comes out of a "branch" relationship with Christ. Often a grape plant will have a healthy root system with branches that produce small fruit. A vinedresser will then take a branch that produces large fruit and graft it into the main branch. From then on the branch is fed and nourished by the original root and branch, which enables it to produce good fruit. After the graft has taken it is difficult to determine exactly where the vine ends and the branch begins because they are so interconnected. The same sap flows internally through the vine and out through the grafted branches.

This picture tells us that we can have lives that are so interwoven with Christ's life that we can't tell one form the other. To be honest, I know it isn’t hard for other’s to tell my life apart from Jesus’ life. But I can continue to grow towards that. It is out of that deep intimacy and growth that the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, faith, patience, etc, will begin to grow. I can’t develop spiritual fruit apart from Jesus any more than a branch can produce grapes without being connected with the vine. I can and do often try to muster up those qualities on my own, thinking that that is what I am supposed to do, but I always fall short.

This passage makes it very clear that those qualities are the byproduct of intimacy with Christ. That takes a load off of my shoulders in trying to muster it up on my own. This passage was spoken to disciples and is not about salvation. He tells us up front that we are already clean. He tells us that we are to abide or remain in Him and He in us. From other passages we know that Christ promised to never leave or forsake us, and that the Holy Spirit was a permanent indwelling so He could not be talking about a physical staying or leaving in the passage. It is a conscience awareness of living in the presence of God and understanding He is living in us through the Holy Spirit and His word. In verse 7 He even talks about Christ's words dwelling in us. I think that means that His words become a part of our core belief system so we are actively living them out at a gut level. What is cool about that is that is begins to feel natural when those things become our core beliefs. He also tells us that He loves us the same way that God the Father has loved HIM! I hope that it is a love that we find irresistible.

He then points out that the way we remain in His love is to obey His commandments. This doesn’t mean that when we disobey Him that He removes His love and His presence from us. The word makes it clear that it is His love that disciplines us and calls us back to repentance. I am confident that it is something in us. When we sin we feel unlovable and we hide! That is no surprise if we think back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve hid from God. Nor is it a surprise when we think back to the cross. As our sin was laid on Christ, He cried out, "Abba, why have your forsaken me?" By his use of the intimate word Abba we know He's confident of his relationship and is not questioning God about His love. We also know that the cross is a demonstration of God's deep love for us, not an act of rejection for the beloved Son! It was a cry from the depths of His humanness and it fully describes the emotional affect that our sin had on Him…and ultimately on us. We "leave" God in a spiritual sense when we sin, yet we feel and sometimes believe that it is God who leaves us. To remain in His love means to remain in the state of joy of relating openly and honestly and lovingly to God – a state that is without fear. It means to confess known sin immediately and to continuously choose to obey. It means that to have that sense of belonging we need to obey Christ's commandments. It means to be in a constant state of awareness of His presence and continuously discussing with Him all that concerns us and praising Him for who and all that He is. His love and the other fruits are manifested and enjoyed by us only when we walk in obedience to His word. When we don't obey our own guilt distorts our picture of love and distorts our beliefs about God.

In conclusion are you abiding in Christ and His love? Are you letting the Lord nourish you by memorizing and meditating on His word? Are you letting His words take up residence in your soul? Are you remaining there by choosing to obey Him? Are you willing for Him to prune away what is not holy so that the fruit of the Spirit will be produced in your life? Are you letting Him abide in you by spending enough time with Him that His character and His goodness is starting to rub off on you? In other words, is He affecting your decisions, your character, your words, and your actions?

Prayer: Father, it is such an interesting picture to think of ourselves as branches that have been grafted into Christ. As we worship, read your Word, and meditate on it may we begin to let it permeate the deepest recesses of our hearts and begin to reflect your nature and character and love to those around us. Thank you for loving us and sending your son to demonstrate your love to us. Thank you for telling us that He loved as in the same way and with the same depth that you loved HIM! Amen.

Godly Sorrow Is A Good Thing

"Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it--I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while--yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us." 2 Corinthians 7:8-10

Sometimes I struggle with the concept of "body life" or community within the church? Most of us enjoy the warm fuzzy parts like encouragement, kindness, or serving each other. However, the harder part we call "speaking truth to one another" or exhortation is harder to for us to appreciate. Let's look at the process and motivation for speaking the truth, what to expect when we speak truth to someone, and what we can expect from ourselves when someone speaks it to us. By "truth," I want to make it clear that I mean speaking the truth of God's word, not just our perceptions or what we think. We all interpret things through our own personalities, our pasts, and our giftedness. That is why getting several perceptions and considering all the information on an event or relationship difficulty will get us closer to the truth. Biblical truth is truth that comes from the Word and never ever changes. However, we can lose sight of it in our sin or in our pain. We can also misunderstand a truth and having someone correct our thinking is speaking truth.

Relationships evoke all sorts of emotions, some of which are extremely uncomfortable. Emotions are God given and nothing of which to be ashamed. However, we are responsible for expressing them appropriately. The emotions we would call negative emotions aren’t really negative. They are uncomfortable, but that serve as a barometer that signals us that something is wrong and they tell us valuable information about our hearts. When godly boundaries are being subtly crossed we may experience things like uneasiness. With more blatant offences we feel stronger emotions like hurt and anger. God wants to use that anger to motivate us to speak the truth in love rather than react defensively and damage the person. We first need to determine where our emotions come from. Is it our own baggage, exhaustion, or hormones or is the other person's behavior triggering the emotional response in us? We are responsible for confronting sinful behavior with an attitude that invites reconciliation or restoration. The motive is always to helping them be the best person they can be. Reflecting Christ to others doesn’t mean ignoring our own needs and hurts. Hurt often means another person's behavior does not line up with scripture. Speaking the truth to people requires great humility because we have to come to Christ and admit our needs and our hurts first and check our own hearts. It is only as He fills us with godly wisdom and heals our hurt feelings that we can see that our hurt is secondary to the fact that a person we are confronting is sinning against God. Our hurt really is only a catalyst for God calling us to minister to the other person by helping them mature in Christ.

A person being confronted often gets defensive and shows hurt or anger at first. If we have prayed and know we are confronting in God's will by showing her how her behavior caused us pain, we don’t have to feel any guilt over their response. It is helpful to be gracious and allow the person to have her initial emotional response. At the same time we can pray that their sorrow, which may begin as selfish sorrow will turn into godly sorrow that leads to repentance. Pray that they will not become revengeful or run from the issues or your relationship. As godly sorrow begins to emerge, the person will usually no longer be hurt by your confrontation, but be sad that they grieved God. That is the time to come along side and offer support and encouragement. When you are focused on loving the person the temptation to stay angry goes away. Lastly, it is important to realize your success is measured by your obedience to God, not in effecting a change in them or confronting them without making them angry with you. It is ok to gently point out defense mechanisms like anger, tears or justifying a wrong action, but God has to change the person’s heart. Remember, to be like Christ is being more that a warm fuzzy friend -- Christ was warm, kind, tenderhearted, but he was also bold and firm.

How we respond to confrontation is an indication of our own maturity. I had friends who cared enough to confront me for an eating disorder and they saved my life. At first I was angry, but today I continue to be thankful that they cared enough to confront. What is your gut reaction to confrontation? Do you try to end the conversation, justify your behavior, get angry or show great hurt by bursting into tears? If a friend has the gumption to confront you, do you have the gumption to listen and examine your life to see if there is truth in what they say? The pain of confrontation is a good pain in that it motivates us to change if we have open hearts. It is okay for any of us to need some time to process during a hard conversation and then meet to respond. There may be times where we have not sinned, but there is a difference in expectations that a calm loving conversation can clear it up. On the occasions we are confronted for something we did not do, but we might be able to minister to the person if we remain calm and loving.

Even though words that lead to godly sorrow often wound at first, we must recognize that they are precious expressions of love? Do you love boldly enough to confront? Do you praise God for friends who confront you? Can you receive and give correction with grace?

Prayer: Father you are awesome to call us to deeper growing relationships that are like iron sharpening iron. Sometimes in our humanness sparks fly in that process. Give us hearts that are humble enough to hear people who are confronting us in a godly way. Also give us hearts that are bold enough to confront and love a person through their initial responses. Fill us with you Holy Spirit and heal our hearts so that we can reflect you to others. Amen.

A Transformed Mind

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."

- Romans 12:2

Wow, as I read this verse again, I am struck by how little time I really put into renewing my mind and yet that is how we will know what the perfect, good, and acceptable will of God is. It’s so easy for us to believe that we don’t really know what God’s will is in some situations, to reach a place in our lives that we feel stuck, think this “faith” thing doesn’t work, or fall into the trap of adopting a worldly view of life. I realize for me it is because I become distracted, too busy, or sometimes even just too lazy to do what it takes to have His thoughts and desires firmly implanted in to my heart and my mind. That is the only way that I will be able to clearly discern His will, desire to obey His word, and believe fully in His promises.

This verse says that God's will is good, acceptable and perfect. I wonder at times if we really believe it, or are we afraid that God's plans for us will be boring or unfulfilling. Are we afraid His plans might be too limiting, difficult, or uncomfortable? Anything that is good, acceptable, and perfect for us in God's eyes has got to be exciting and fulfilling! If God who is full of grace and truth, wise and loving, powerful and mighty, designed a life plan that is best for us, how can we not trust that? Maybe during the times we’re rebellious towards God's plan, we are really questioning His character more than His plan. The truth is that God is absolutely good and there is no evil intention anywhere in His being! He does all things well! That means His plans are still good, acceptable, and perfect, even when they are "hard." His plans do include weeding out what is unholy in us, producing peaceable fruit of righteousness in us, which can be uncomfortable. However in the long run our lives will become more fulfilling once the weeds are out.

We need to take time to honestly discern if we really want to know God's will. Sometimes we don’t because we are rebellious and sense our own will is clashing with the Lord's will. The only solution for that is honest confession and asking God to align your will with His. This is like a wrestling match where you express your doubts, wants, pride, ambivalence, and needs honestly to Him, then allow Him to transform your heart.

It also helps to understand what it means to be conformed. Biblically it means to be pushed into a mold. Paul is telling us not to let the outward pressures of the world mold us. Yet, I wonder how many of our decisions that we make about makeup, dress, speech, purity, and actions are molded by what we see in our culture and by our desire to be accepted by others? Ironically, many who say they want to be their own person are becoming a clone of others in their social group. This verse also tells us to be "transformed by the renewing of our minds. That means to be changed from the inside out. Transformed is from the same Greek word used to describe Christ when He was "transfigured" before his disciples. The glory of His deity shone through His humanity! To be transformed by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us is to let Him shine through us! One way we can do that to do that is to express our "doubts" and our "buts" to Him. "Buts" are those things that we think that put distance between God and us. For example, God says in Colossians to put away our anger. Our "buts" might be "I don't want to." "You don't know how much they hurt me." "I want to get even for what they said." When I express my "buts" to God, He often impresses scripture on my mind. He may say something like: "I know it hurt when they lied, people lied about me, too. Tell Me about your hurt and I will heal it, but I want you to forgive as I forgave you. When you forgive, you reflect me to others. You are the "only Bible" these people will “read” and I have called you to love them and to reveal my heart to them."

As we read God's word and pray about it begins to permeate our souls and change our core beliefs. Reading doctrinal truths deepens our understanding of God’s character. If we read a narrative passage about Christ relating to people, we learn how He wants us to relate to others. As we get to know Him our love for Him will grow and our relationship with Him will affect our dress, speech, actions and reactions more than the world does.

Does your dress, speech, actions, and reactions reflect the world or do they reflect that you know you are loved, treasured and completely accepted by God? Do they reflect the fact that you are a daughter of the king or Kings and that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Do they reflect a heart and mind that has been transformed by His word? What do your clothes say about your values? What do your emotions, behavior, and thoughts reveal about your heart? When we saturate our minds with His word we will reflect Him more. Instead of avoiding His truth, we need to continue to develop transparency with God and the willingness to wrestle with His truth and His will like Jacob and Christ did. That wrestling will help to fully make His will our own. (Matthew 23 and Genesis 32) Being transformed from the inside may not always be comfortable, but the result is having God's beautiful glory shining through our humanity! There is nothing more beautiful that a woman who is walking close enough to God, that His glory shines through.

Prayer: Father, please help us allow your words to transform us into the women you have designed us to be. When the world is crowding in and trying to mold us, help us to be strong and refuse to let it mold us into something you did not design us to be. Thank you for your perfect will and for making it possible for us to know it. Thank you for loving us and wanting a relationship with us so much that you would die for us. Amen.

Precious Reconciliation

"Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ."

- 2 Corinthians 5:17-18

One of the things I hate the most is when I have a broken relationship and cannot mend it. On the other hand, when a broken relationship is mended I experience all sorts of emotions including intense relief and unspeakable joy. The most important relationship I have ever had mended was the one that I have with Jesus. Before I accepted Christ as my Savior, my sin made me an enemy of God and in a sense the relationship I was created to have with Him was broken. The passage above makes it clear that I have been reconciled to God, not Him to me. That is because I was the one who sinned against Him, thereby breaking the relationship we were supposed to have. I, just like Adam and Eve, had the tendency to hide and withdraw from Him because of my sinful heart. There are three scriptures that explain my need to be reconciled to God. First, Colossians 1:20-21 says that I was alienated from God, hostile in my mind, and was engaged in evil deeds. It is interesting to note that at the time these verses were written that gentiles were alienated from God because the covenants God had previously given were given to the nation of Israel. Hostile in mind means that I was hateful toward God in my attitudes and choices. It is so easy to want to minimize the evilness of our sin. But the reality is that sin is a hateful action towards God. When we continue in sin it indicates that we resent His holy standards and His commands. Because those commands reflect His character, we are resenting and rebelling against Him. John 3:19-20 says, "…loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest His deeds should be exposed." Isaiah also says it pretty eloquently in Isaiah 59:2, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear." Oh, that I would never lose sight of the grace that Christ offered me. He has reconciled me to our Holy and loving Father. I have been given the opportunity to be in a relationship with the very one whom I have offended and with whom I have been an enemy. That is grace.

When two people are at odds it is usually easy to see that each person had a part in the conflict that separated them. But in my broken relationship with God, I was the only one who had done wrong. This is because God is holy and just. His wrath against sin must be appeased in some way. According to Jeremiah 10:10, God's wrath is not a laughing matter, but a scary one, "At His wrath the earth quakes, the nations cannot endure His indignation." Those who refuse to accept Christ have the wrath of God remaining on them. Christ died to appease God's wrath towards mankind, which is what has enabled me to have an intimate relationship with Him -- "Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him." (Romans 5:9). Occasionally I get so used to the idea of reconciliation that I am no longer grateful for it. That is when I need to read and meditate on Isaiah 53 and the accounts of Christ's crucifixion. The physical suffering He endured is hard to fathom, but the emotional suffering impacts me to the core. He was falsely accused, His trials illegal, brutally beaten, and mocked by the men He came to die for. I think the most crucial part of the story is the anguish that He had to bear as our sin was laid upon Him when He bore the full brunt of the Father's wrath for our sin. The way I came to comprehend the significance of it was to think of a time in which I came back from a place where I had a spiritual "high". It is one of those times I felt so close to God that I never wanted to sin again because I was so in love with Him. Then I messed up. The anguish and pain at how easily I could sin after having been so close to God made me sick and made me feel alone. Then when I think how Christ must have felt when the sin of the entire human race was laid upon Him. The words He spoke in that moment -- "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" -- were spoken with such passion and desperation. His words would reflect our own cries had He not died.

While I want others to understand the payment that was paid, I also want to remind them to bask in the knowledge that God's love for them motivated Him to provide a means for their reconciliation. Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrated His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." It’s hard to understand that while I was enjoying my sin that God chose to send His son to die for me. It’s even harder to understand why His son would agree to lay His life down for me so that I can be brought into a right relationship with God. I hope that I never forget that our eternal life with God required a bloody violent sacrificial death. I hope I never forget that God's demonstration of love required that He and His beloved Son face rejection. I hope I never take for granted my imputed holiness, which required Christ to take on my sin. I hope I never forget His desperate cry from the cross when I utter the precious words "Abba -- Daddy." Doesn’t that kind of love demand a response of passionate obedience from me?

Prayer: Father, thank you for choosing to reconcile us to You through Christ's death. We know we do not deserve it Your act of grace. Please help us to never take our reconciliation for granted. For it was by the blood of Christ that we were given the titles of friend, children of God, and joint heirs with Christ. Help us to love You with passionate obedient hearts that are full of thanksgiving. Amen.

The Process of Growth

"Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another; and for all men, just as we do for you; so that He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints."
- 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13.

I often feel confused about what part of the growth process, as a Christian, is my job and what part is God's. I have often struggled with those concepts and feel that I am finally getting some understanding about it. As I have begun to understand God's role and my role it is amazing how much more exciting my relationship with Christ is becoming. There are two things mentioned by Paul that are God's responsibility that I use to try to muster up in within myself. The first thing that he asked God to do was to cause them to increase and abound in love for one another and for all men. As I think about these verses I want to try to figure out how God does this work in me.


Not long ago I did a blog on loving God with all of my heart, mind, soul and strength and my neighbors as myself. I saw that in 1 John that I was told I love Him because He first loved me. True scriptural love comes from a heart that has recognized, accepted, trusted and experienced God's love. Out of the overflow of experiencing His love we learn to love Him through obedience and faith. We then learn to let that love be our guideline in how we treat and relate to others. I find that when I am the most confident of God's love and acceptance that I am really secure enough to take risks in loving others. Biblical love is a supernatural act of God within the heart of a believer.


The second thing God does is to establish my heart in holiness. Again, personal holiness or righteousness is not something I can make happen on my own. For when I try that, what comes out is self-righteousness. I clearly understand the positional righteousness that was imputed to me when I trusted Christ to be my Savior and He took God’s wrath for my sin. I get that when He looks at me He no longer sees all the sins that I have done, He sees God’s righteousness in me instead. Second, I also understand in a head-sorta-way that God saves me continually from the power of my sin. My job, as near as I can discern, is to come honestly before God and spend time in His word and prayerfully choose to obey it. (Romans 12:1, I Thessalonians 5:16-24!) As I am spending time with Him, God will impart His character and His desires for me into my heart. It is like an elderly couple that have been married for so long that they look and act alike. If I spend enough time with Him, I will begin to walk and to talk like Him. My confession will flow out of experiencing His holiness through His Word and His Holy Spirit. He abides in me and can change my heart so that no sin will have power over me, but I have to be really honest with Him about the sin that has been such a stronghold in my life. It has taken me awhile to understand that my “mask of perfection” does not glorify God, but my honest transparency with Him and with others that He puts in my life does. He is glorified when we let Him replace our fear with His boldness. He is glorified when we let Him replace our anger with bold love, humility, and firm but gentle rebuke that invites reconciliation rather than seeking to wound. He is glorified when we become timid and turn to Him and let Him give us His courage to speak truth into every situation. He is glorified when He wants us to teach and we turn our inadequacies over to Him so He can do something through us. He is glorified when we are tempted with sin and turn to Him for the strength to say no! In summary, He is no less glorious because of our humanity. Rather, He is glorified when we come to Him in our weaknesses and let Him work in us.


So I have to honestly ask myself, “Am I trying to muster love and righteousness up apart from God?” If so, I need to make a conscious decision to try it God's way. I will greatly benefit by spending time with Him by reading His word and praying about what I read. How I desire Him to make His word come alive in me personally and desire for Him to show me what He desires for me specifically. When I read His Word I want to respond to it by making application to my life so that I can integrate His truth into my life where it becomes part of my soul.


As I study the Bible, I notice how God loved people and dialogue with Him about the reality of His love for you. I must daily ask Him every day to fill me so that I love Him with all that I am and ask Him to love others through me. I am thankful that I can be totally transparent and real with God. For there is nothing in me that is so evil that it will keep Him from loving me or keep Him from changing me so that I can be more like Him. If I am not bringing things to the light of His word by confession and transparency, He is not obligated to do anything towards changing me. When I am craving intimacy with God, I can choose to turn to worldly things or I can acknowledge what I am craving as I sit at His feet and let Him overwhelm me with His love. When I am tired of sin and want to be more like Him, I need to set aside my tendency to dwell in that ugly place called toxic shame and come boldly to God and spend time saturating my mind with His thoughts and trust His Holy Spirit to work His righteousness in me. Today I choose to ask God to let me see others He has called me to love through His eyes. They are people just as broken and confused as me, who, in the hands of the Master, can be transformed and molded by His perfect love and His redemptive work…are you willing to join me in being a part of the process?



Prayer: Father, thank you for being a God who will establish our hearts in righteousness and love. Thank you for the transforming power of your word and your Holy Spirit. Father, cause us to crave time enough with you that we begin to look like you, act like you, talk like you and even think your thoughts. May we be people that when we let our minds go idle, the automatically go to thoughts of you. Amen.