love

How Did Noah Build The Ark?

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord Genesis 6:8

For those who have not made it to see the Ark Encounter it may be difficult to imagine not only the size, but also the tremendous amount of details involved in the ark. God’s instructions were clear on the dimensions and to make a window and a door. The rest of the thousands of decisions as to exactly how to build the ark were left up to Noah. How did he do it? God doesn’t tell us much but we know one thing about Noah: He found grace in the eyes of the Lord!

In the same way Jesus has given us His clear commandment: Love one another:

1526304765031_image.jpg

He wasn’t specific on the details of our obedience to this important mission. He is trusting us to fill in the blanks each and every day with the exciting, challenging and sometimes downright complicated outworking of that obwdience.

If you are struggling at times like I am with learning to love don’t be discouraged. There is one wonderful reason one reason to not give up and walk away: Grace!  By God’s grace we can figure it out just like Noah. It is a gigantic task but by grace, the love of Christ in us is up to the task!

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19

1526296501929_image.jpg

 

First Love

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

But I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first.   Revelation 2:4

KIMG1622

As Jesus spoke to the church in Ephesus He began by listing all the great things about them. They had been faithful, worked hard, held up under persecution and had stayed away from false teachers. Sounds like the best church in town! But then Jesus brings up the burden of His heart; they have left their first love for Him. It might seem as if He was being hard on them, but the Bible tells us that the church is the bride of Jesus Christ. He is the bridegroom, waiting at the altar in heaven, with His eyes focused on us. He has loved us and given us his very own life so we can live with Him forever. In His heart is a longing to be with His bride but when He looks down He sees something changing. His bride’s heart that once longed to run to spend time in His presence is now very busy. She still thinks from time to time of Jesus, but she is also quite involved in a lot of other things. Everything seems so important that soon her schedule is so full that there are only a few moments left for Jesus.

Then He looks and sees His people not only too busy for Him, but also too busy to bother much about telling others about their need for Him. His heart is longing to see us again totally living for him. What will it take for us to go back to our first love? How will we ever return to where we once were? Jesus tells us clearly. He does not say; “Feel really bad and cry and pray.” He does not add, “Give some more money to the church.” He doesn’t even say, “Go out and start feeding folks at the soup kitchen.”  All of those things are only a pale substitute for the “First Love” that Jesus has in mind.