Tag Archives: Love

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Trouble, Anguish and Understanding Pt. 1

Give Me Understanding

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Understanding

“Trouble and anguish have come upon me, yet Your commandments are my delight.  Your testimonies are righteous forever; give me understanding that I may live.”  Psalm 119:143-144

Healthy relationships are built on knowledge, understanding and grace.  Sharing a conversation with a person will, in most cases, allow one to get to know them.   However, that does not necessarily mean that they have any kind of significant relationship…at this point they are, for the most part, acquaintances.    Solid relationships are built when people share their lives.  They celebrate the high points together, comfort at low points and offer aid, wisdom and guidance in the midst of struggles.  Grace covers the gap between knowledge and understanding as well as when there is a need for forgiveness.  Developing a strong relationship takes time and effort but yields a great reward.

Last week I was looking for scripture verses to post on social media and came across Psalm 119:43-44.  Despite having read and sung it many times, this time it struck a nerve.  The natural tendency of any human when faced with trouble that causes anguish is to seek understanding.  The important question is: what kind of understanding?

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True Value

Understanding Your Worth

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Matthew 10:29-31

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  1 John 4:10-11

My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Wilbur raised sheep.  For the twelve years I was in elementary school through high school, some portion of the summer was spent at their home.  One Wednesday evening we were getting ready to go to church and my uncle got a call that dogs had gotten into one of their pastures.  My aunt and I went on to church while my uncle and older brother went to check on the sheep.  While the dogs were removed quickly, it wasn’t until we had the light of day the following morning that the damage that they had done could be assessed.  I remember riding in the back of the truck looking for injured sheep.  There were several and the scene wasn’t pretty.  Uncle Wilbur loaded a couple on the truck to take home, but most, if not all, of the attacked sheep died.  The basic tactic of the dogs was to chase the herd until one of the sheep got separated, attack it and then repeat the process.    In most situations, there is usually safety in numbers, but isolation weakens our level of protection.

Isolation comes in many forms.  Like many, mine is associated primarily due to illness and my inability to work.  For others, it may be personality type, a change in marital status, leaving the work force, increasing frailties as a result of age, or any of a number of other issues which may present themselves individually or in concert.  Further, one does not need to spend a lot of time unaccompanied to feel isolated.  Often I have felt completely alone while surrounded by people.  Satan loves to find us isolated as it makes us more vulnerable to his attacks.  Just like the dogs with sheep, he uses our vulnerability to undermine our thought processes and, thereby, erode our faith.  One of his first targets is our sense of worth.   He works on us until we begin to forget our true value.

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Glorious

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“I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever.  Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever.  Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.  On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wonderful works, I will meditate.   Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.  They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness and will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.”  Psalm 145:1-7

As I was finishing a run recently, I was overcome with the urge to glorify God.  As I pondered His glory, I had to check my soul to make sure it wasn’t merely an emotional high.  After all, it was a beautiful day and I had just completed my first good run in a long time.  Thankfully, while the weather and my mood may have been contributing factors, upon reflection, they were minor ones as  I truly just needed to praise God.  However, my contemplation led me to consider how easy it is to glorify God when the sun is shining and things to seem to be going well, but what about the dark and cloudy days or when times are tough?

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Problematic Assumptions

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“But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.   When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began saying to one another, ‘Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.’ However he shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm.   But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.”  Acts 28:3-6

My wife and I were recently on vacation and decided to stop for dessert after while walking back to our hotel from a craft fair.  The dinner rush had passed, but there were still a few stragglers entering the restaurant for a meal.   After being seated, we waited an unusually long time without being acknowledged by a server…long enough that the couple in the next booth who had been seated after us had already received their drinks.  Slightly irritated at the lack of service, I suggested that if we weren’t acknowledged in the next five minutes, we should just go back to the hotel.  Our waitress finally showed up just before we were ready to leave and seemed less than enthusiastic about serving us.  However, she apologized and explained that a tourist had come out of the ladies’ room and hit our server’s nose with her elbow causing intense pain.  What we had assumed to be poor service was in actuality something entirely different.  Having heard the explanation, our demeanor quickly changed from frustration to concern.  That’s the problem with assumptions, just because we have a little information, doesn’t mean that we know the truth of the matter.

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Love and Grief

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“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7)

This was not the topic that I originally intended for this week’s post, but given a few divinely inspired events, my plan was changed.  As is my habit, I started the day with the “verse of the day” emails from Bible Gateway and KLove. The one from Bible Gateway was a portion of Psalm 139.  It is a favorite of mine for many reasons; one of those is that it was the last passage my parents read together on the eve of my mother’s death.  That circumstance coupled with the quote that I posted this week beckoned me to consider love and grief.

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Forty Year Stretch

Marriage, Commitment, Love and God

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“Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.  Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,’ so that we confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.  What will man do to me?’  Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”    Hebrews 13:4-7 

This past weekend Marie and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary.  While I would like to say that it was an entirely blissful 40 years, that would not be a true statement for two reasons.  We are both fallible humans still in the process of sanctification and there have been trials that have tested our faith in each other and our God.  However, what I am able to declare as true is that those 40 years have been blessed and I would, therefore, like to share a bit of our walk with you.

If you read from the beginning of Hebrews 13, you will see that Paul is asserting a list of essential behaviors for the body of Christ; they are in essence keys to living well.  Honoring marriage is just one of them.  However, if you look beyond the issues themselves, you see a few common denominators that allow for success in these areas. 

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Enduring Love

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We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. 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 4:16-17

We all like to be reminded that we are loved…especially by those who are dear to us.  My wife was out of town this weekend and I wasn’t feeling the greatest on several levels.  At one point, I considered staying home from church on Sunday morning.  However, realizing that it was not a wise choice in that moment and that there are others who would love to attend a worship service, but are unable, I rose to the occasion and went.  During the praise time, the worship team led us in “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”.  For various reasons, I desperately needed to hear those words.

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Christ Our Redeemer

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Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  Hebrews 4:14-15 

The small group that my wife and I participate in is currently studying the statements of faith that our church affirms.  As I began preparing for a study on the statement related to Christ, I thought it would be appropriate to walk through it here since the Christian world will be celebrating Easter in a few days.  It’s a brief but great reminder of what we are celebrating and is as follows:  “We believe in Jesus Christ, His virgin birth, sinless life, vicarious death, burial, bodily resurrection, His ascensions to the right hand of the Father and His personal future return in power and glory.”

Why Christ?

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The Love of Christmas

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“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  1 John 4:7-11

As a father and a grandfather, I love my children and grandchildren.  If there is ever a time when I am called to give up my life to save theirs, there would be no hesitation.  Yet, as devoted as I am to my family, my love for them is imperfect.  The problem is not a lack of affection, but rather that I am a fallible human…I sin, I err, and I fail.  Lest I feel totally hopeless, God continues to provide His perfect example for me to learn from.

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Thanksgiving Part 5

Thankful for Salvation

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Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!  2 Corinthians 9:15

As we move from the celebration of Thanksgiving to the celebration of Christmas, I can think of no better way to conclude the series about thankfulness than to consider being thankful for the salvation provided by Christ our Lord.  While there is much that can be, should be and has been said about this gift, I’d like to focus on the act of love, the ongoing gift and the benefit yet to be received.

One of the first verses we learn as Christians is John 3:16 and it is certainly a great passage to know for it speaks of the love that is the backdrop for this indescribable gift.  The Father has done what He has never asked of any of us in that He has sacrificed His only son.  However, to truly put it into perspective we need to also look to Romans 5:7-8.

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