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Dead People Love Best

February 14, 2012 in Discipleship with 0 Comments

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

The women at our church get together once a month for café food and a little Bible discussion. Last Saturday we were given 1 John 4:18 as a launch pad.

I still experience fear sometimes.

Not debilitating fear. Not irrational fear. But fear.

I fall before the fear of man sometimes. I fear for some of the students we minister to, sometimes. I fear for the eternity of some of my loved ones. I fear for the financial security of our future sometimes, and sometimes I fear that we will never have children.

Which means, according to the scripture, that I am not perfected in love.

But what does that even mean?

What does it look like to be “perfected in love”?

Does it mean that I am perfected, inside of, and by, the love of God? Does it mean that I love perfectly? Is it a measure of both, because I can’t love perfectly unless I’ve been perfected?

Either way, Jesus is the only example.

I thought of John 15:13,

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

The one who has perfect love, loves perfectly, in laying down his life.

Which reminded me of 1 John 3:16,

“We know love by this, that He laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 

Perfect love seems to have a lot to do with unconditional sacrifice.

Not that every believer is called to physical martyrdom, but we can lay down our lives in a myriad of ways: we lay down our pride, our expectations, our personal dreams if necessary, our standard of living, our plans, our comfort zones. We give up everything for the good of others, and we become a “living sacrifice” per Romans 12:1.

That is perfect, sacrificial love. That’s the only way to love like 1 Corinthians 13 teaches love. I forget about me, and I become a conduit for God’s love. The only way is if I’m not in the way.

Which feat is not easy. Everything in the world tells me that my life is about me. My dreams. My plans. My hopes and desires.

I went back to the original text, to get some context, and found my answer in the two preceding verses,

“God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as he is, so also are we in this world” (1 John 4:16b-17). 

Abide in God. Spend time with God. Get away, every day, like Jesus did, to worship, pray, read His word, and be with God. Rest, dwell, remain in God and He will do the same in you, and “by this, love is perfected with us.”

When I spend time in Him, I learn His heart; I have revelation of His glory. When I spend time with Him, I’m reminded of who He is and who I am not. I get closer to His heart, and I can love like He loves.

Review: Called to Controversy

February 13, 2012 in Reviews with 2 Comments

Have a blog? Like free books? Check this out.

Subtitle: The Unlikely Story of Moishe Rosen and the Founding of Jews for Jesus

I didn’t know much about Jews for Jesus, or Moishe Rosen, before I read this book, but the synopsis was intriguing and I like biographies. It was great to “meet” Moishe for the first time through his daughter, and, later, employee.

Called to Controversy opens by following Moishe’s Jewish family as they emigrated to the U.S., and settled in a Jewish community in Colorado. Both of his parents’ families came from Europe, in time to avoid a certain Adolph Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.

The stories of Moishe’s childhood – collected from Moishe himself before his passing, as well as his wife and close friends – are enlightening insights not only into what shaped this amazing man, but into the American Jewish community itself.

The depth of the culturization [I just made that word up] of Judaism is stunning. The blind resistance to Jesus as Messiah is heart-breaking. Thousands of years ago, the Jewish people were lost because of their refusal of Jesus as the Christ. Now, at least in the U.S. the Jewish community is lost because of their ignorance of Jesus as the Christ.

The stories of Moishe’s wife, and then Moishe, coming to faith in Jesus are beautiful passages. Their communities, and families, disowned them, although he believed it was difficult for them to do.

Through interviews, research and first-hand experience, Ruth Rosen traces Moishe’s call to bring the gospel to his people, and she – at Moishe’s request – is blunt and honest. Moishe’s mistakes and faults are reported unapologetically, and surprisingly so from someone who is not only a daughter, but an avid supporter and fan. If any author has ever removed her own prejudices and emotions from a story, Ruth Rosen has done so.

From Moishe’s call to the mission field, to his sponsorship at a Christian university, to his failed attempts at street-preaching, to the building of an international ministry and his inability to really let go of it when he retired – Moishe Rosen was an inadequate man, in the hands of a Master.

Moishe was honest about his mistakes and his shortcomings, but he always went back to God, and God used his faith to do amazing things.

Moishe’s story, told in such a raw narrative, is inspiring in so many ways. He will inspire you to do the work of an evangelist – especially among the Jewish people.

He will inspire you to look to God, instead of your own weakness, and he will inspire you to be obedient in one step at a time so God might build something world-changing through you. A lot of leadership biographies claim to do these things, but Moishe’s actually does. I don’t think he would be offended at my saying he really was the most normal, faulty person that I’ve ever read of God using for huge things.

Quotes (and a great story) after the break:  Continue Reading…

Give No Offense

February 9, 2012 in Discipleship, Pauline Epistles with 0 Comments

I got stuck on this passage at the end of 1 Corinthians 10 the other day:

31 Whether, then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; 33 just as I also please men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.

Do I do that?

Of course, the other side of that same coin is that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. We preach. We live holy lives. Paul certainly offended some people.

But is that offense-in-the-name-of-truth the the exception, or the rule?

It’s so easy to tell myself that A is A and B is B, and if you don’t like it, too bad. Do I go out of my way to “please all men in all things,” and only shrug at inescapable offense when all else fails? Or do I just do what I’m going to do without considering other peoples’ responses, because I can support it with scripture.

Paul’s talking about eating food sacrificed to idols – something that mature believers, he says, don’t really have to worry about for their own sakes. If it’s going to bother someone else, though, forfeit your freedom in Christ for his sake.

I’m generally pretty quick to preach the freedom I have in Christ. I’m pretty quick to defend it, because,

I tell myself, I’m defending Christ’s sacrifice that paid for it. But am I?

Using PG-13 terms like, “suck” and “crap” are not sin. But if a parent of a student, or someone in our congregation where I minister, thinks it’s inappropriate, I should submit to that.

Our society makes all kinds of excuses, and all kinds of, “You can’t please all the people all the time” posters. Maybe that’s true, but is it a sad reality or an excuse to me? Paul seems to think I should try to please all the people all the time.

Thoughts?

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