Psalm 118
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
2 Let Israel say:
"His love endures forever."
3 Let the house of Aaron say:
"His love endures forever."
4 Let those who fear the LORD say:
"His love endures forever."
5 In my anguish I cried to the LORD,
and he answered by setting me free.
6 The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
7 The LORD is with me; he is my helper.
I will look in triumph on my enemies.
8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.
9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.
10 All the nations surrounded me,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
11 They surrounded me on every side,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
12 They swarmed around me like bees,
but they died out as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
13 I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the LORD helped me.
14 The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
15 Shouts of joy and victory
resound in the tents of the righteous:
"The LORD's right hand has done mighty things!
16 The LORD's right hand is lifted high;
the LORD's right hand has done mighty things!"
17 I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
18 The LORD has chastened me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.
19 Open for me the gates of righteousness;
I will enter and give thanks to the LORD.
20 This is the gate of the LORD
through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me;
you have become my salvation.
22 The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
23 the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
25 O LORD, save us;
O LORD, grant us success.
26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you.
27 The LORD is God,
and he has made his light shine upon us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will give you thanks;
you are my God, and I will exalt you.
29 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
Psalm 118 is a song and teaching of love, respect, thankfulness and victory. How often have I gone to this psalm when nothing else could touch my soul and lift me? How often have I gone to this psalm when it seemed a relationship was not working? How often have I gone to this psalm when business or ministry was in a struggling time frame? How often have I gone to this psalm when victory was in my hand? How often have I gone to this psalm when all was well and needed undergirding to stay well?
God respects us. God loves us. God encourages us. God supports us. We return the same plus thankfulness.
Victory grows in love. Love grows in victory. Love flourishes under accomplishment and support. Love can be birthed and built in thankfulness. Love can be unconditional and chosen. Love flourishes under accomplishment and support. Love develops strong when expressing respect.
Men don’t talk much about love for their leaders. They will follow a military leader into death if they love him and feel loved by him. They will grumble and lose the battle if they feel unsupported and unloved by him. They don’t talk about it. They do it.
Men don’t talk much about love for their wives and families. It is true. We exemplify the husband that tells his wife how much he loves her. We put him up as a hero and a strange phenomenon. But a man that feels supported and encouraged will give his life day and evening to serve his wife and family. He will grumble and move on if he feels unsupported and not respected and not loved and not thanked by his wife.
Respect and love are not two different items. Respect is an expression of love birthed in a relationship. That relationship started through attention gained in personality, accomplishment, or personal touch. There is a start through some action or attention. Real respect simply flows out of love. Love requires feeding to stay alive and prosper.
God not only understands this, He designed this. He designed us creatures of thankfulness. Thankfulness takes love expressed in respect. Thankfulness for support is easy. Thankfulness for encouragement flows quickly. Thankfulness for thankfulness is a quick reciprocal.
God not only understands this, He designed this. He designed us creatures of victory. Victory takes love expressed in respect. A battle for a business or family or community or economy or principle takes a love for the ones that will benefit. Some love themselves and battle. Some love others and battle. Some love themselves and others and battle. But love is the heart of every battle and the love expression of respect and dignity engages victorious action.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Love Notes
For a while, I’ve meant to write this discourse. Someone recently asked me about my love for them. Really, about every second in life, someone is searching for the next answer to that question. So many struggle with loving themselves, loving God, being secure in love from God, and the two way relationship of loving with others. It many times is a fathering issue.
Men just don’t seem to carry an effective way of affirming, encouraging, and stimulating the right love relationship in their children. That passes down as less than blessed into the generations. Women don’t love their husbands the way the husband needs to be loved. Men don’t love their wives the way they need loved. Singles don't get how to be a loving person without a sexual component.
Hose the word dysfunctional by the way. We use it for anything less than our personal definition of best. That is not dysfunctional. It might be unsatisfying, but it is not dysfunctional. Dysfunctional is a mental and emotional dis-ease. Dysfunctional is not being able to relate in any positive manner at all. Dysfunctional is being 90% destructive in relationships. So free yourself from that horrid term and accept you are a normal, functioning human with a few quirks you would like to fix with God’s help.
So, do I love you?
Love as a Human
Love starts as accepting another person as a valid member of humanity. Anyone connected with Christ should be able to do that. Anyone connected with the Creator should be able to do that. Even a heathen can do that. It is imbedded in our native creation as an express impression of our Father. It does have to be nurtured. There are some really sick folk that move away from this in response to abusive treatment. Our television dwells on the sickness of the sociopath.
Love as a God-Enabled Human
Okay, there is another love in this realm that is important. This one takes an active relationship with the Father in Christ. This love accepts others as valid in my humanity and my world. Now this one is a struggle. Wars and apartheid are made of not living this love. Not having this love is pointed out by John in his letters as a separation point between Christian and others. A friend just facebooked how awkward he felt in a white church today. Hmm? Why do we have white, black, Mexican, Honduran, Korean, Vietnamese, middle class, blue collar churches? There must be a shortage of expression of this type of love in the kingdom. It is not about affirming someone’s right to be a human in their manner. It is about affirming, accepting, and actively seeking relationship side by side on the most friendly basis without sense of difference. It is the understanding there is neither male nor female nor black nor white nor Methodist nor Baptist nor Latino nor moneyed in God’s eyes. This is God’s Eyes love. Sure hope heaven is not as exclusive and lonely and poor in culture as our congregations. My God spun all cultures from Noah down from a single thread of genes. We all got a little Noah DNA in us and should remember that well. He had to reset the counters once after Adam. Glad he committed to not doing it again. Let’s don’t tempt Him with our lack of love. Do you love me with God’s Eyes or am I white to you?
Love with no requirements
Here is another level of God love. Love someone with no requirements of behavior towards you and others. This is definitely a God-enabled love. When I hurt you, do you forgive me? Do you still love me? When I steal from you emotionally, physically, or mentally do you love me? Do you offer me a hand up and out of my place? Do you offer me the acceptance of Christ even as He accepted you? I’m not going to quote chapter and verse. Read Paul’s letter to the Romans all the way to the end. Will you go out of your normal path to find me and offer me the love of Christ? That is thIs love.
Love as a friend
Now, God never told me to love you as a friend. It is good when I do, but we all have limits to how many friends we can make. Each person has a different capacity for the number of friends and the level of intimacy with each of those. Some friends stick closer than a brother. Closer. Get that. I have friends to whom I am much closer than my blood brothers. I hope they do too. We have not walked the same path since we left our parents’ home. A husband and wife that are close and intimate are the best of friends. Okay, read Proverbs. The whole book. Zero in on the verses that talk about covering sin, bringing good news, loving correction, gossip and slander, and the power of words. Friends learn these tight relational secrets and live by them with each other. Solomon talks about a complaining wife and how the husband is better off living on a corner of the roof top if he has one. That friendship is kaput!
A friendship love includes encouragement, affirmation, comfort, listening, enjoying doing things together, sharing pains and joys, and always speaking well. It allows the other to be who they are and love them for it. It allows you to be who you are and be loved for it. Friends don’t sit around thinking how to change their friends.
Love as a Family Member
Culturally, we don’t share this in the same way. Tribal love many times brings in extended family from the whole community. Congregational love in small congregations can get to this level with a good enabling pastor/father figure. Really, fathers make this happen more than anyone in my observation. It can be matriarchal also. Do I love you as family? Do your birthday, anniversary, and special moments and achievements bring me joy?
I have a big family. My wife and I, our natural children and their families, children of my heart that call me dad and their families, close friends that have moved really close in relationship and affection in this manner, and people I have crossed in the kingdom and connected. They are family. It keeps getting bigger. Sometimes the blood family is not the ones that receive this love. It isn’t just there because you have blood line. It takes work and focus. Not all of those I call family call each other family. That is okay. Hope the tight folks are open enough to allow you to be bigger and you them. Else wise, they are the poorer.
Brotherly love is a big part of this. None of us seems big enough to bring everyone into their sphere of brotherly love. You just need to keep expanding. That is kingdom call. Read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about 150 times. Get it?
Compassion
Take a run through Isaiah on this one. It will take some study. Read the Psalmists when they focus on the goodness of God, slow to anger, and of great compassion. Look into a mother’s eyes when her son is struggling to succeed in business. Compassion takes empathy and sympathy and emotes from deep in the belly of a human. Compassion in truest form means action. Jesus moved with compassion taught, did miracles, fed people, and dispatched leadership into the field. Try the gospel of Luke, also. Compassion streams out of one of the loves when touched deeply.
Worry is not compassion. Worry is sin. Worry is a lack of faith in God. It may spark from compassion that does not see how to act, but it is not love in any form. It is destructive and God encourages us to get away from it. In fact, worry will cause relationship to separate. Many a parent is lonely in old age due to worrying so much their children stayed away.
Love Levels
No, I have not gotten to entertainment’s number one subject of love, yet. It is coming. Right now, it is time for a word from our sponsor.
Love is experienced at four levels. It is mental (includes reason, will, and emotion), physical (hugs and kisses and warm feelings and sometimes sexual), spiritual (only for those in Christ with an enlivened spirit by His Holy Spirit), and relational (interactive and connected). We are quad partite. Love in every area includes experience in every area to be fully received and expressed. Read any gospel. Shake off that mind, body, spirit thing. We are social beings as much as mind, body, spirit. You do not exist to have sex with yourself. You do not exist to kiss yourself or hug yourself. You do not exist to talk to yourself. You do not exist alone. Get it?
Betterment Love
Okay, this is dysfunctional. Many believe, “I love you so much I want to change you into something better.” That is called control or manipulation. There is no love in that. Love always wants the best for the other person not for me. Love does not want to control. Self love wants to control. Other love wants to enable. Parents, rear your children according to their natural bend and gifts. Don’t make them do it your way. Spouses, get connected with the destiny of your spouse and encourage and enable it. Stop trying to change your mate.
Erotic Love
Love that arouses is many times confused with being love by itself. This is an expression of either lust or another love rising in the sensual realm. It is not love at all. When we are intimate our senses get into the game. Sexual expression should come from full mixture of all the other loves in a one-one, man to woman relationship. Friendship at the most intimate level, family at the most intimate level, inclusion at the most intimate level, kingdom connection at the most intimate level, and God enabled love at the most intimate level releases erotic sensual expression at the most intimate level.
When we skip the spiritual and relational components of our created intent, we focus on the mental and emotional and physical components of love and end up in shallow relationships that might have physical expression at fulfilling levels, but don’t last.
When we skip the mental and emotional and physical components of love and focus on the spiritual and relational components, we end up with an unfulfilled relationship.
Many 50 year marriages of the past looked like this. They kept celebrating sustaining the relationship only to be sad excuses for a marriage all along the path. Intimacy at some level is abandoned and fulfillment became staying locked into societal duty and obligation. What a tragedy. Our generation is cursed because of misunderstandings in this area. Divorce is rampant not because it is a dis-ease. Divorce is rampant because we think it is okay to be selfish and self centered and demand relationship due to our needs and desires and societal rules. “I can’t have sex without changing diapers together.” “I won’t listen to you in the morning until after my coffee.” “Here is my list of ways I like to be loved.” You have to stay married to me even when I hate you. Books and books and books are written about it and nothing significantly changes in our culture. Eventually one or both get tired of the game and look for fulfillment in the abandoned area. We are a wounded culture that needs God equipping release in every area.
Love and Respect
Is there a difference? If you love, you respect and defer and allow the gifts of others to excel. You encourage it. If you do not love, you disrespect and restrict and disallow the gifts of the other to excel. You criticize and resist. Get it? Respect is an expression of love. Love expresses respect. Real respect does not exist without one of the areas of love. Real love for the other does not exist without respect. If there is no respect, we simply love ourselves and not the other person and call it love.
End of present discourse... thoughts?
Men just don’t seem to carry an effective way of affirming, encouraging, and stimulating the right love relationship in their children. That passes down as less than blessed into the generations. Women don’t love their husbands the way the husband needs to be loved. Men don’t love their wives the way they need loved. Singles don't get how to be a loving person without a sexual component.
Hose the word dysfunctional by the way. We use it for anything less than our personal definition of best. That is not dysfunctional. It might be unsatisfying, but it is not dysfunctional. Dysfunctional is a mental and emotional dis-ease. Dysfunctional is not being able to relate in any positive manner at all. Dysfunctional is being 90% destructive in relationships. So free yourself from that horrid term and accept you are a normal, functioning human with a few quirks you would like to fix with God’s help.
So, do I love you?
Love as a Human
Love starts as accepting another person as a valid member of humanity. Anyone connected with Christ should be able to do that. Anyone connected with the Creator should be able to do that. Even a heathen can do that. It is imbedded in our native creation as an express impression of our Father. It does have to be nurtured. There are some really sick folk that move away from this in response to abusive treatment. Our television dwells on the sickness of the sociopath.
Love as a God-Enabled Human
Okay, there is another love in this realm that is important. This one takes an active relationship with the Father in Christ. This love accepts others as valid in my humanity and my world. Now this one is a struggle. Wars and apartheid are made of not living this love. Not having this love is pointed out by John in his letters as a separation point between Christian and others. A friend just facebooked how awkward he felt in a white church today. Hmm? Why do we have white, black, Mexican, Honduran, Korean, Vietnamese, middle class, blue collar churches? There must be a shortage of expression of this type of love in the kingdom. It is not about affirming someone’s right to be a human in their manner. It is about affirming, accepting, and actively seeking relationship side by side on the most friendly basis without sense of difference. It is the understanding there is neither male nor female nor black nor white nor Methodist nor Baptist nor Latino nor moneyed in God’s eyes. This is God’s Eyes love. Sure hope heaven is not as exclusive and lonely and poor in culture as our congregations. My God spun all cultures from Noah down from a single thread of genes. We all got a little Noah DNA in us and should remember that well. He had to reset the counters once after Adam. Glad he committed to not doing it again. Let’s don’t tempt Him with our lack of love. Do you love me with God’s Eyes or am I white to you?
Love with no requirements
Here is another level of God love. Love someone with no requirements of behavior towards you and others. This is definitely a God-enabled love. When I hurt you, do you forgive me? Do you still love me? When I steal from you emotionally, physically, or mentally do you love me? Do you offer me a hand up and out of my place? Do you offer me the acceptance of Christ even as He accepted you? I’m not going to quote chapter and verse. Read Paul’s letter to the Romans all the way to the end. Will you go out of your normal path to find me and offer me the love of Christ? That is thIs love.
Love as a friend
Now, God never told me to love you as a friend. It is good when I do, but we all have limits to how many friends we can make. Each person has a different capacity for the number of friends and the level of intimacy with each of those. Some friends stick closer than a brother. Closer. Get that. I have friends to whom I am much closer than my blood brothers. I hope they do too. We have not walked the same path since we left our parents’ home. A husband and wife that are close and intimate are the best of friends. Okay, read Proverbs. The whole book. Zero in on the verses that talk about covering sin, bringing good news, loving correction, gossip and slander, and the power of words. Friends learn these tight relational secrets and live by them with each other. Solomon talks about a complaining wife and how the husband is better off living on a corner of the roof top if he has one. That friendship is kaput!
A friendship love includes encouragement, affirmation, comfort, listening, enjoying doing things together, sharing pains and joys, and always speaking well. It allows the other to be who they are and love them for it. It allows you to be who you are and be loved for it. Friends don’t sit around thinking how to change their friends.
Love as a Family Member
Culturally, we don’t share this in the same way. Tribal love many times brings in extended family from the whole community. Congregational love in small congregations can get to this level with a good enabling pastor/father figure. Really, fathers make this happen more than anyone in my observation. It can be matriarchal also. Do I love you as family? Do your birthday, anniversary, and special moments and achievements bring me joy?
I have a big family. My wife and I, our natural children and their families, children of my heart that call me dad and their families, close friends that have moved really close in relationship and affection in this manner, and people I have crossed in the kingdom and connected. They are family. It keeps getting bigger. Sometimes the blood family is not the ones that receive this love. It isn’t just there because you have blood line. It takes work and focus. Not all of those I call family call each other family. That is okay. Hope the tight folks are open enough to allow you to be bigger and you them. Else wise, they are the poorer.
Brotherly love is a big part of this. None of us seems big enough to bring everyone into their sphere of brotherly love. You just need to keep expanding. That is kingdom call. Read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians about 150 times. Get it?
Compassion
Take a run through Isaiah on this one. It will take some study. Read the Psalmists when they focus on the goodness of God, slow to anger, and of great compassion. Look into a mother’s eyes when her son is struggling to succeed in business. Compassion takes empathy and sympathy and emotes from deep in the belly of a human. Compassion in truest form means action. Jesus moved with compassion taught, did miracles, fed people, and dispatched leadership into the field. Try the gospel of Luke, also. Compassion streams out of one of the loves when touched deeply.
Worry is not compassion. Worry is sin. Worry is a lack of faith in God. It may spark from compassion that does not see how to act, but it is not love in any form. It is destructive and God encourages us to get away from it. In fact, worry will cause relationship to separate. Many a parent is lonely in old age due to worrying so much their children stayed away.
Love Levels
No, I have not gotten to entertainment’s number one subject of love, yet. It is coming. Right now, it is time for a word from our sponsor.
Love is experienced at four levels. It is mental (includes reason, will, and emotion), physical (hugs and kisses and warm feelings and sometimes sexual), spiritual (only for those in Christ with an enlivened spirit by His Holy Spirit), and relational (interactive and connected). We are quad partite. Love in every area includes experience in every area to be fully received and expressed. Read any gospel. Shake off that mind, body, spirit thing. We are social beings as much as mind, body, spirit. You do not exist to have sex with yourself. You do not exist to kiss yourself or hug yourself. You do not exist to talk to yourself. You do not exist alone. Get it?
Betterment Love
Okay, this is dysfunctional. Many believe, “I love you so much I want to change you into something better.” That is called control or manipulation. There is no love in that. Love always wants the best for the other person not for me. Love does not want to control. Self love wants to control. Other love wants to enable. Parents, rear your children according to their natural bend and gifts. Don’t make them do it your way. Spouses, get connected with the destiny of your spouse and encourage and enable it. Stop trying to change your mate.
Erotic Love
Love that arouses is many times confused with being love by itself. This is an expression of either lust or another love rising in the sensual realm. It is not love at all. When we are intimate our senses get into the game. Sexual expression should come from full mixture of all the other loves in a one-one, man to woman relationship. Friendship at the most intimate level, family at the most intimate level, inclusion at the most intimate level, kingdom connection at the most intimate level, and God enabled love at the most intimate level releases erotic sensual expression at the most intimate level.
When we skip the spiritual and relational components of our created intent, we focus on the mental and emotional and physical components of love and end up in shallow relationships that might have physical expression at fulfilling levels, but don’t last.
When we skip the mental and emotional and physical components of love and focus on the spiritual and relational components, we end up with an unfulfilled relationship.
Many 50 year marriages of the past looked like this. They kept celebrating sustaining the relationship only to be sad excuses for a marriage all along the path. Intimacy at some level is abandoned and fulfillment became staying locked into societal duty and obligation. What a tragedy. Our generation is cursed because of misunderstandings in this area. Divorce is rampant not because it is a dis-ease. Divorce is rampant because we think it is okay to be selfish and self centered and demand relationship due to our needs and desires and societal rules. “I can’t have sex without changing diapers together.” “I won’t listen to you in the morning until after my coffee.” “Here is my list of ways I like to be loved.” You have to stay married to me even when I hate you. Books and books and books are written about it and nothing significantly changes in our culture. Eventually one or both get tired of the game and look for fulfillment in the abandoned area. We are a wounded culture that needs God equipping release in every area.
Love and Respect
Is there a difference? If you love, you respect and defer and allow the gifts of others to excel. You encourage it. If you do not love, you disrespect and restrict and disallow the gifts of the other to excel. You criticize and resist. Get it? Respect is an expression of love. Love expresses respect. Real respect does not exist without one of the areas of love. Real love for the other does not exist without respect. If there is no respect, we simply love ourselves and not the other person and call it love.
End of present discourse... thoughts?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Lead Away, Jesus
Matthew 6: 13 And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen
Temptation
Temptation is everywhere. Our eyes jump to it. Billboards call our attention to it. Media permeates our senses with it. No wonder, Jesus encourages us to pray for being led away from it and the evil one that builds it. It is enough to be tempted of our own flesh. When the evil one gets alongside our impure desires and leads us into temptation, we can easily fall. Jesus never fell. He stayed tall. Surely, looking to His Father to lead Him in safe places away from tempting situations was a key. We need to do the same. There is enough power and glory in His kingdom to attract us. We don’t need to spend time in tempting situations.
Jake’s Hard Day
This had been a hard day for Jake. While he waited for God to move, it seemed nothing would ever happen. His job just kept getting worse and worse. His home life kept going downhill. What about the job Sally mentioned? Maybe that was a place where there was less drag to the dark side. Every Friday, Jake’s co-workers tried to get him to stop at the bar on the way home. He loved a good beer. Sometimes he could not resist. He became weak. Those were the worst nights at home. He always drank too much and would come home light headed and heavy hearted. His wife was losing her patience. Jake cried to God to get him away from the influence of these friends. It just seemed too strong for him
ACT! List out your weakest points. Where do you fail most times when tempted? Can you change your path so you don’t enter into temptation?
PRAY! Father of Love and Mercy, where is my salvation? Can You free me from myself? So often, I fall into the same traps over and over and over. I know the right thing to do. Yet, I don’t get it done. You know me. You know my weak spots. Help me, Father to avoid the temptation of life. Deliver me from the influence of the evil one. Build your kingdom and power and glory in me that I might live in righteousness. Make my paths straight to walk in Your ways all the days of my life.
Phil Larson, 508 Tumbleweed Dr., Yukon, Oklahoma 73099 405-388-8037
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Secretly Open
Matthew 6: 1 “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 3 But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly
5 “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly
Jesus is secretly open. What He does in secret, He does not to hide, but not to bring attention. It isn't that He is trying to be secret. He just is not interested in men's approvals and accolades. He is interested in His Father's approval and His Father's will being done in secret. It is for our example not our preoccupation.
The right thing just seemed so obvious to Greg. Why did others not see what needed to be done? Over and over he worked to convince other managers of the prudence of his actions on the project. They just kept acting like he was promoting himself and his team. That was not the point at all. He just wanted to see the company advanced and his team had the best opportunity to take it forward on this project. Greg mulled over his options with the team. Finally, they concluded they just needed to act and not talk about it anymore. Just get the job done, they decided.
ACT! Take inventory of your "good works." Are they done for the Father and for example to provoke others? Are they done to be noticed?
PRAY! Father, increase in me attention to Your will and ways. Let my friend and I concentrate on the private days of our lives and the private moments of our days. Let us excel in secret that exposure of our lives life would only reveal Your activity.
Phil Larson, 508 Tumbleweed Dr., Yukon, Oklahoma 73099 405-388-8037
Perfect
Matthew 5: 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Now this is stiff to face. A perfect Jesus is here asking us to be perfect. How in this world can we accomplish such a challenge? Jesus and the Father are one. The Father is perfect. Jesus is perfect. The conversation exactly before this relates to relationships. Even working at being even keeled and just and equitable in all our dealings with others in love and graciousness is tougher on perfection than we can match. But, thanks be unto God, He did it for us. Jesus was perfect for us to follow.
Greg liked to think he was strong. Then the pressure came. The challenge to do more in less time with less staff was causing him to stay up at night. Over and over, he would think of reasons the project was late. Every time, he concluded he just wasn’t the right person for the job. This night, he decided to read a little and pray. It was coming down to looking for a new job. As he read through the gospel of Matthew, the verse on being perfect disturbed him. Then he thought it through. The thought wasn’t to do it all according to man’s perfection. The challenge was to love and greet and meet each situation with the mind of Christ. Whether the situation was good or bad made no difference. Just meet it with confidence in Christ. Love always. Greet always. Believe always. He was the right man because God placed him there. These were the right staffers. Immediately he began to review plans and pray for wisdom. What would he do if it were all in great shape? Do the right thing.
ACT! Start now. Remove an imperfection, an attitude, a glitch in your treatment of someone today. Don't worry about everything. Do work on one thing.
PRAY! Whew! Father, You sure want a lot out of me. But, Father, You gave a lot. You gave Your only begotten Son, Jesus. Jesus gave His life's blood for me to be perfect with You. Encourage me, Father, to stand tall to the task and declare, "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me fully and completely and perfectly."
Phil Larson, 508 Tumbleweed Dr., Yukon, Oklahoma 73099 405-388-8037
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
From The Prayer Closet
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Even Ground
Matthew 5: 43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45: That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
The Father is consistent in His world creation. The environment, the rules, the principles, the laws, and whatever else happens is the same for good and evil, just and unjust. What goes up comes down (gravity). What goes down comes up (seedtime and harvest). The wages of sin is death. When it rains, everybody gets wet. There are certain principles that affect us all. Acting like Him means being the same with those around us whether we like them and their lifestyle or not. Sin does not invalidate principles; it invokes them. Think about it.
It was a blessing recently to visit a great new coffee shop. Set in the middle of the red-light district of our metro, along with coffee the proprietors offer a listening ear and hope for a better future. The place has become an oasis in a hard community of drugs, sex offense, violence, and negativity. On this particular day, the shop was full of pastors and ministers wanting to connect with each other and some new ideas of reaching other people. In the middle of “the event” a woman from the community wandered in looking for a little heat and respite. With a lost look, she was wandering and looking for a place to sit. A friend and I were on a coach back in the corner, this young woman and my eyes connected as we scooched down a little to create a place on the couch. A few minutes later, the host of the event asked everyone to link hands for prayer. The woman pulled her hands back up into her overly long coat and slumped a little in the shoulders as she was clearly out of her normal element. I reached over and put my arm on the back of her coat. It was sticky and maybe had been her only comfort on many nights in some hard places. Through the prayer, I found myself thinking how different this lunchtime moment was. On the woman’s right was the only black couple in the room of Caucasian ministers. On her left was me, the only businessman in a suit with a tie on. Next to me was the only Latina in this sea of compassion. It did not strike me until some hours later that our little corner was the “diversity” corner of a packed room. I am thankful for that moment. I am thankful I got to be there and hear the stories and pray and meet V., who sat and stood next to me. She blessed me by her strength to be able to press into such a different group of people and find a spot on a couch.
ACT! Is there someone you are treating rudely because they have a lifestyle different than yours? Do you hold at arm’s length a homosexual but not a gossiper? Think about it, and make sure you are like your Father.
PRAY! Consistent Father, You treat us all the same. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever. The principles of life and death rule over me as much as anyone who hates you. Thank you for offering that to me when I was outside of Your family. Help me offer even ground to others that they might see Your goodness and enter also alongside me and Jesus.
Phil Larson, 508 Tumbleweed Dr., Yukon, Oklahoma 73099 405-388-8037
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