Love

What Does Jesus Mean by Love?

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments 
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. John 15:14-15 ESV

The phrase, “I love you Lord” often used in the lyrics of our worship songs and hymns, though not unknown, was one rarely used by the disciples of Jesus, or even of the Lord Himself. Peter, Matthew or James didn’t get up in the morning saying things like, “Good morning, Jesus. I love you!” Most of the time the disciples were too busy asking questions about what they were to do next or arguing about who was the most important among them. Jesus Himself also spent most of His teaching talking about the Kingdom of God and showing love rather than just talking about it. That all sounds foreign to us who have spent a generation being told we must tell the people around us that we love them on a daily basis. Now, of course, the Bible also tells us that, “God is love” (See 1 John 4:8). At issue is not whether we really love God or not, but on what that love ought to look (and sound) like. Jesus tells us in today’s verse that love, doesn’t just mean saying, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Love means laying down our lives for Jesus, and for each other, just as He gave His life for us. On the cross as God was revealing the deepest meaning of love through Christ, He didn’t once say, “I love you.” Instead, Jesus promised eternal life to a thief, offered forgiveness to his killers and asked His disciple John to take care of His mother. The lyrics of this week’s hymn do start out with “My Jesus I love Thee” but they also go much deeper into the what and why of that love. In his sermon this Sunday our pastor mentioned that we often gloss over the commands of Jesus and that we forget that He commanded many things. (He counted 38 commands of Christ). The kind of love that mattered to our salvation was a dying love, that chose the nails, the crown of thorns and the cross over comfort, freedom and popularity. The words that we sing about loving Jesus, loving God and thanking Him for Heaven are all great, but they must be coupled with a love that is too deep for words. The love of God is a message that can only be written with the ink of our actions. So, as John tells us in his letter, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.” 1 John 3:18 

I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree
I love Thee for wearing
The thorns on Thy brow
William Featherstone 1864

The Least Important Thing

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall diligently teach them to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 ESV

Though I am retired, I continue to manage a large farm, which has been converted into a weekend rental. Among my duties is paying the various contractors, one of whom is a young mailman named Jesse, who along with his wife, clean the place in their spare time after work. The many hours they put in, remind me of myself at their age. Back then, with two teenage boys at home, a mortgage, and a car payment, it seemed we were always short on money. But looking back now some 50 years later, I now realize that the least important thing I did during that time was to make money.

I am not saying that working or paying bills doesn’t matter. In fact, we learn in the Bible that before Adam sinned, and even before God created Eve, Adam had a job. You are probably shouting right now. “What job was that?” Now, if you are wondering, about Adam’s entry level job, it was to name the animals that God brought them to Him. Maybe Adam started with Aardvark, and worked his way through the dolphins, lions, and whales, as one by one, Adam named thousands of animals. Finally, he was so exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep and while he rested, God created Eve. Yes, work is good and a gift from God, but sometimes we begin to juggle a growing collection of tasks in the way that a circus performer sends plates spinning on a variety of different sticks. It is all very impressive until the moment that they all come crashing down. Often the crash that we hear in our lives is the sound of a door slamming shut behind a close friend, a lonely teenager, or an angry wife, who have felt ignored, abandoned, or undervalued. We have forgotten God’s command to not just rush back and forth to church on Sundays and then hurry on to our next activity. God calls us to take time to talk about His words and find ways to weave them into our everyday lives. Those words which created planets, formed the glaciers and waterfalls are more than simply lines to be remembered: they are holy and pure and above all they are words that give us life. Have God’s words stirred your heart today? Then, pause for moment, bow your head in prayer and remember that what matters most of all is that God loved us and sent His only Son, so that we could spend all eternity with Him!

God Loves You!

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments 
 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life John 3:16 ESV

Marie* wants to see you in the cafeteria after the message” they told me. Marie suffered from Parkinson’s Disease that often leads to depression, and that afternoon she was so depressed that she hadn’t come in for our song and prayer time at her nursing home. As I went in to sit with Marie, she began to cry and took hold of my hands blurting out, “God hates me!” 

She felt isolated from the outside world, because no old friends ever came to visit, no family came for her birthday or Christmas. “What in the world can I say?” I wondered. What good news do I have to share with her?” Then I remembered the verse we all learn in Sunday School, and I said, “God loves you, Marie! Because the Bible says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son…” At those simplest of words, Marie calmed, her face brightened, and she happily listened as I took my guitar back out of its case to sing her favorite hymn, “In the Garden”, and afterward we prayed together.

Maybe you aren’t in a facility, and don’t have Parkinson’s, but at some time in our lives we all face moments like Marie did. No one understands our hearts, and it feels as if God has turned His back or simply forgotten about us. In those darkest of moments, we have to remind ourselves that just as God did not forget Marie, He has also not forgotten us. Though we may not be the richest person in the world, we have its richest hope, because we have received the lavish gift of God’s love. We also need to remember that there are Marie’s and Bettys, Bob’s and Joe’s all around us every day. There are people we bump into at the store, on the street corners or even in our family, who desperately need to hear about the hope of God’s love. Yes, “God so loved the world!” So, why not pass that great hope of Jesus on to others today?