storiesofvalue

What Are You Thinking?

Not long ago I met a woman who was preparing to donate a kidney to her father.  She had been identified as a “match” for the procedure, but there were several other people who, for a variety of reasons, were ahead of her on the donation list.  Then, through a series of circumstances, the others were suddenly disqualified and she was contacted to start the process of donation.  She was surprised, and endured a few days of understandable anxiety, but the news she had been chosen didn’t discourage her from her brave act of love.  Her love was a living example of the “agape” Jesus needed from Peter.

Love’s definition is often framed, in our minds, as much by experience as truth.  This doesn’t mean love as experienced cannot be true, as is evident in the case of this courageous woman.  Yet, not all experiences are trustworthy models for love.

Several days ago FBI agents arrested scores of human traffickers and rescued several young girls who were being forced into prostitution to support the sick behavior of some men attending the Super Bowl.  Some of the girls who were victimized had been sold out by their own family members!  Certainly, no sane person would call the horror these children experienced “love”, but there is little doubt their abuse will impact their ability to understand love for the rest of their lives.

I often counsel people who struggle with God because others in authority over them have demonstrated a misguided brand of love, or in some cases, a complete absence of love.  None of the authority figures in our lives are perfect, but to the degree they are able to reflect the perfect love of God, we can sort out what doesn’t belong and see His heart.

Therefore, when we consider Jesus’ love for us, we need to do some comparing and contrasting so we don’t inadvertently project the world’s definition of love on Him.  Jesus gifts us for service, but He is not a user.  He disciplines us, but He is not an abuser.  Sometimes He prompts us to take responsibility for our actions, but He is not absent.  And while He wants us to live for His glory, He was willing to die for our salvation.  What do you think of when you consider how Jesus loves you; this Jesus, Lover of our souls?

What Were They Thinking?

What do you suppose the Pharisees and scribes thought when Jesus dished out His woes?  Did they see Him as a hen gathering her chicks, or a rooster spurring his competition?  Was Nicodemus in the crowd?  Perhaps he thought, “You know, we ought to pay attention to what He has to say.”  Jesus is the Lover of our souls, but it is possible to miss out on everything if we don’t let Him love us.

In the last chapter of John’s gospel we find what many have called Peter’s reinstatement.  Peter denied Jesus after fair warning, and no one would have blamed the Lord had He kicked him out of His band of disciples.  It would have been easy for Jesus to have said, “Peter, I’ll see you someday in heaven, but I really just can’t trust you to lead my church.”  Instead, He asked, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”  Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you” (John 21:15).  Three times Jesus asked and three times Peter answered “yes.”

There is a small detail within Jesus’ dialogue with Peter that is worth noting.  Jesus’ first two requests employed the word “agape” which refers to a sacrificial kind of love.  All three times, Peter answered with the word “phileo”, meaning a deep friendship.  In his third request Jesus changed his word to “phileo”.  Many people suggest Jesus was disappointed Peter’s love wasn’t as deep as His, and that he changed His approach after failing twice to stir the kind of response He was hoping for.  This could be the case, yet we should not necessarily see “phileo” as an inferior love; only a different kind of love.  It is possible Peter  just wasn’t thinking.  Or maybe he was thinking!  After all, he had denied His Lord.  How could he possibly claim to have a sacrificial love for someone he let down in an hour of need?

My desire here is not to necessarily analyze Peter’s heart, or even try to get inside the heads of the Pharisees and scribes.  I merely believe we should put some serious thought into what it means for Jesus to love us.  We toss the word “love” around very loosely in our culture and sometimes fail to define it with action and anecdote.  Jesus loves us, this is true.  What more could He do to show His love than He has already done?  But do we treat Him like a Lover?  Do we want to know everything about Him?  Are we willing to consider spending more time with Him?  Is He even worthy of our spare time?  Or do we simply say, “He loves me so, I know” and move on to our next activity in life?

What are we thinking when we say Jesus loves us?  If He really is our Savior, then He not only deserve more of our thoughts, but He also our utmost attention when we come to worship Him.  This is the way it is when people love those who love them first.

We can actually answer the question “What was He thinking?” with some accuracy.  Before His death, Jesus knew His disciples’ hearts were troubled.  He comforted them with a vision of eternity and the promise of the Counselor to come (John 14:1-16).  He also gave them a supper as a memorial of His death to come (Matthew 26:26-28).

After leaving the upper room, Jesus and His disciples journeyed to the Garden of Gethsemane.  He asked them to watch and pray while He found a private place to pour His heart out to the Father.  What was He thinking?  Jesus was thinking the pain of the way to Calvary was nearly unbearable, and in anguish He sweat drops of blood, and made His intentions clear: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

On the cross Jesus thought about His mother’s security and the souls of people who desperately needed grace.  He was thinking thirst, and at last, “it is finished” (John 19:30).

I feel certain Jesus had many thoughts that are not recorded in scripture.  Do you think He thought of you there?  The most important thing for us to realize is Jesus was not sheltered from His passion.  He wasn’t waiting for a cue from His Father to tell Him His next line.  Instead, He was “very God” suffering in full awareness.  The fact Jesus could have altered events in His life had He wanted, only accentuates the determined, calculated nature of His actions.  Perhaps more than anything He remembered how His Father “so loved the world” (John 3:16).  Had this not crossed His mind in some form, I don’t know how He could have endured.

What Was He Thinking?

Love makes us do crazy things.  Not long ago my wife Jane and I attended our niece’s wedding.  Family weddings can be a challenge for preachers since they are normally held on Saturday afternoon, and preachers need to be in their pulpits on Sunday.  This was the case with our niece’s wedding.  I could have taken the Sunday off, but it so happens we were using our morning worship to highlight an upcoming week of Vacation Bible School.  I love Vacation Bible School and couldn’t bear the thought of not being there to deliver a short morning devotional.  Unfortunately, there were no airline flights that fit our schedule.  Our solution was to stay for the wedding in Indiana, then drive fifteen hours through the night so I could be back in Virginia for worship.

There were people who thought we were crazy for the all-night drive.  They might be right.  But they don’t know how much we love our family, and our church family.  That is the nature of love.  It often defies logic.

I sense a lot of people who watched Jesus go to the cross thought He was crazy.  When Judas betrayed Jesus in the Garden, Peter drew a sword.  He must have wondered why Jesus didn’t put up a fight (John 18:10-11).  Pilate was amazed when the popular “King of the Jews” refused to save His own life (Mark 15:4-5).  The leaders at the foot of the cross mocked Him (Matthew 27:42-43).  One of the criminals who died with Him criticized Him (Luke 23:39).

Perhaps it was hard for any of these people in Jesus’ life to understand His heart.  If He loved Israel He should overthrow the Roman regime.  If He loved sinners, He should save them all from their circumstances.  And, of course, if He was the King of the Jews, He ought to be able to save Himself.  Instead, He gave His life on a cross, because there was no other way He could pay our debt of sin.  Jesus was indeed thinking, and His thoughts were fully focused on us.  He would have done anything to save us.  At the cross His love cost Him everything.

Have you ever had a soul-mate?  If I understand the term correctly, I have had two.  One was a cousin I used to run with when I was a kid.  We only saw each other in the summer and at Christmas, but it seemed as though we always picked up where we left off, regardless of how long we had been separated.  We both loved to fish, hunt, knock down wasp nests, and generally get into any kind of trouble we could find.  This last affinity caused more turmoil in a small town in central Kentucky than I would like to admit.  When we grew up, our lives went in different directions and we no longer bothered getting together.  So maybe we weren’t soul-mates.  Maybe soul-mates are supposed to be for life.

My second soul-mate qualifies in this respect.  My wife Jane and I met our freshman year of college, dated for five years, and married before beginning what is now a thirty-four year ministry in the Lord’s church.  We have been with each other so long we now know what each other is thinking much of the time, and we can usually predict how the other will react to life’s challenges.  We can laugh together and aren’t ashamed to cry together.  I am pretty sure we meet the definition of soul-mate.

An obvious difference between these two relationships are the years invested.  They are also unique in purpose.  My time with my cousin was about filling our time with adventure, and if possible doing so without breaking anything or getting hurt.  My wife and I have also been on an adventure, but it has required an interconnectedness of our dreams and very being.  I hope to see my cousin in heaven, but I am actively involved in making sure my wife and I are able to appear unashamed before the presence of our Lord.  This is also our hope for others.

Jesus is all of these things to us (even a trouble-maker at times), and more.  Not only has He connected with us by becoming one of us, but he gave Himself completely to us through His death on the cross.  He drew us into an adventure with Him in His glorious church, and gifted us for ministry.

How is Jesus “more” than any other soul-mate?  If we have given our lives to Him, there is a moment in time only the two of us know intimately.  Do you remember the day you cried out to Jesus and received His grace?  Were there sins He gave you the courage to turn from?  Has your decision to follow Him as your Savior altered the course of your life and guided you through difficult days and painful circumstances?  Our earthly soul-mates might know some of these things, but only Jesus knows them all.  I don’t mind sharing my wife with Jesus just as she doesn’t mind sharing me.  In fact, our mutual walk with Jesus only makes our walk together sweeter.

You might say this is the one love triangle God blesses.  It is also one He uses to transform us and prepare us for our final destination.  Love means wanting the people we care about to succeed, even if they must go through some struggles to stand confidently before Jesus.  We reprove and rebuke people we love.  Certainly, we encourage and affirm them too.  But why would we want someone we walk with in faith to miss out on something God has planned for them because we say we love them too much to tell them the truth?  Lovers always tell the truth.

What is Love?

It is hard to recognize a lover if we can’t define love.  One of the most disheartening narratives I witness in ministry is the effect misguided love, or the absence of love has on children as they move into young adulthood.  Sons who see fathers abuse their mothers might believe love is obtained through subjugation.  Daughters raised in similar environments might assume the way to find love is to do everything men expect of them.  There is no need to elaborate on how these lessons impact young lives.  It is probably safe to say, unless someone shows them a dramatically different model, they will never understand the meaning of love or come to know a true lover.

When the Apostle Paul needed a way to describe the love that exists between a man and woman in marriage, he references Jesus’ death on the cross.  He wrote, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27).  Paul also addressed the subject of submission, which his approach clearly shows is not found in fear, but rather mutual respect.

We learn two things about love from Paul’s metaphor.  First, the ultimate expression of love is found in sacrifice.  Jesus was willing to die for us, and we follow His example by pouring our lives out for others.  Secondly, the ultimate goal of love is eternal radiance.  We want those we love to stand before God, unashamed and satisfied by His call on their lives.  In other words, the greatest thing we can desire for those we love is their presence with us in heaven where we will praise the Lamb of God together.  Love is not giving people everything they want.  It is not the act of turning a blind eye to sin.  Instead, love is pursuing the very best for others, which always involves obedience to the perfect will of God.

The song “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” was written by Charles Wesley.  There is a tradition he wrote it while fleeing some attackers who disagreed with his Christian doctrine in the parish of Killyleagh, County Down, Ireland.  At one point he was almost discovered, but he slipped through the rear window of a milk house where he had sought refuge, and escaped to a small brook nearby.  It was there he is thought to have composed this famous hymn, considered by some the finest in the English language.

Whether or not this tradition is true, we can imagine why someone would think of Jesus this way if his life was in danger.  But in truth, one should be even more concerned if his soul is in danger.  The Pharisees and scribes had their religious act together, but inside they were “full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27).  Jesus called them “sons of hell” (Matthew 23:15).  Still, He loved them.  They were too blind to cry out with Wesley, “Thou, O Christ, art all I want, more than all in Thee I find.”  Had they done so, Jesus would have surely gathered them together “as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”

I have heard many people say, “Jesus loves the sinner, not the sin.”  Unfortunately, it is the sin that often keeps the sinner from loving Jesus.  Ironically, it is natural for us to doubt our Savior’s love when we sin.  Our guilt can drive us to the point of despair and even nurture self-destructive behavior.  Jesus loves the sinner, but the sinner isn’t sure how to love Jesus in his broken state.

Did you know Jesus is the Lover of your soul?  “Wilt Thou not regard my call? Wilt Thou not accept my prayer?  Lo! I sink; I faint; I fall – Lo! On Thee I cast my care.”

Lover of My Soul – Matthew 23:37

Jesus can be harsh with those He loves.  Can you accept this truth?

We have a hard time reconciling discipline with love or criticism with compassion in our culture.  It is easier to see our world as an old western where good guys do nothing wrong and bad guys are just running around doing bad things until someone shoots them and writes them out of the script.

Add to this our obsession with self-esteem and resistance to critical thinking, and we can understand why it might upset us to think Jesus would have anything bad to say about the people He loves.

Consider the case of the Pharisees and the scribes in the New Testament era.  The Pharisees and scribes were misguided in their faith, and they grew to hate Jesus.  But they were the leaders.  Pharisees, by definition, were separatists who pledged themselves to a life of holiness and unswerving devotion to the traditions of their people and Old Testament commandments.  The scribes were spiritual lawyers who helped judge the quibbles people had over finer points of tradition and law.  An unhealthy emphasis on man-made traditions and a strong bent toward self-righteousness turned these noble positions into blind religious sects that spent most of their time demonizing the Gentile world and puffing themselves up with pride.

What a shock it must have been for the Pharisees and scribes to discover Jesus wasn’t on their side.  Surely, if Jesus was the Messiah He would want to align Himself fully with God’s most faithful servants.  Instead, Jesus unleashed His relentless chastisement of the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23, in something people refer to as the “seven woes.”  If there was a bridge standing between Jesus and these Jewish leaders before He began His message it was surely in flames by the time He finished.

But just as the point Jesus’ audience must have been ready to lash back in an explosion of anger, He said this: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37).  Huh?  Jesus, you blast your adversaries, only to turn around and pour out your heart to them?

Such is the way of the “Lover of our Soul”.  He may not always tell us what we want to hear, but He knows what we need.

Have you ever considered your service to the Lord to be an incarnation?  Perhaps you have never used this specific word but you may have heard these words from the Apostle Paul:  “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.  We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)

As the “righteousness of God” we invade our world, setting right the consequences of the Eden’s curse.  We do not have the power to make others righteous, but we can be the physical embodiment of the One who can: even the body of Christ.  God reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and then uses us to make His appeal to others.  We call it “outreach.”  God calls it a “ministry of reconciliation.”  There is nothing wrong with the word “outreach”, but we must understand there is a difference between merely reaching out and living among.  It is possible to reach out and retreat, however once we live among the lost, it is difficult to turn back.

God is with us.  We have always been in His presence, but now we are His righteousness, and His presence goes with us.  Be incarnate.  Be His church of reconciliation.

The Church Incarnate

The classic hymn, The Church’s One Foundation by Samuel Stone, contains the line “Yet she on earth hath union, with God the Three in One.” Our role as holy priests is unique to this union.  We are the spiritual body of Jesus (1 Corinthians 12:27), which means He still walks the earth through us.

Yet, our mission is nothing new.  Even before God came in the flesh He wanted His people to be a blessing to the nations.  Why else would He have insisted that His prophet Jonah go to the people of Nineveh?  In addition, when He first called Abraham, why would He have said: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3).

Though we are now in spiritual union with Jesus and are inhabited by His Spirit, and are collectively wedded to Him as His church, our mission is the same as Abraham’s.  Anyone who has ever been blessed by God has been called to bless others.  Since it is nearly impossible to bless our world if we cloister ourselves in a church building, we must move into the enemy’s dark domain and rescue those who are living without hope.  Perhaps you remember the appeal of the Apostle Paul when he wrote, “And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14)  How can they?  How can any of us hear unless someone tells us?  Our incarnation ministry to a lost and dying world is fundamental to our nature.  It is one of those ways we are most like our Father in heaven.