Love!
Right?
It's exactly what I've needed the last week or so...and it's exactly what my Abba has been pouring out on me! It may sound very melodramatic, but the feeling has been like water being poured out onto a dry and weary land. The odd thing is, I didn't even realize how parched I was.
For several weeks I've been thinking that I should pick up Repenting of Religion by Gregory Boyd and read it again. It's been at least five years since I read it. I remembered it being good at the time and speaking directly to many issues in our life...but I couldn't quite get my head around why I should pick it up again now.
Finally I did...and my soul has been drinking it in...gulping is probably the more appropriate word. From the first day, I wanted to blog about it but have been hesitant because I really don't think I can do justice to the book without copying large portions of it here and I really do want to honor copyright law. So bear with me as a share (possibly over the next several days) the lessons I'm learning or being reminded of...because they are too amazing to not share them!
I guess I could sum up the whole book with the Beatles song title that I quoted in the title of this blog...but honestly, that's a bit simplistic. God's Love is simple, but in our culture we have to be very specific to understand what this Love is not: It's not phileo (brotherly love), eros (sexual love/passion) or storge (affection for a thing). Rather it is agape, an unconditional, never-changing, all-consuming love that is only perfectly fulfilled by God in the life of Jesus the Messiah.
I John 4:8, 16 tell us that God is Love! That's where we begin...and what an awesome place to start! Boyd quotes Peter Kreeft: "Love is God's essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express God's essence in this way. Scripture says God is just and merciful, but it does not say that God is justice or mercy itself. It does say that God is love, not just a lover. Love is God's very essence. Everything else is a manifestation of this essence to us, a relationship between this essence and us. This is the absolute, everything else is relative to it." (Knowing the Truth About God's Love: The One Thing We Can't Live Without)
God's very essence...I like that. Better yet, I've experienced that...and it's great to be reminded of it! In fact, as I've read through these 50 or so pages, I've been reminded a lot of a former pastor we were blessed to have. Weekly he spoke of God's Love and how we are all "loved, accepted and forgiven" and to be honest, there were some people that didn't like to hear that so often. That makes them sound harsh or somehow bad...and that's not what I mean at all. I think they just got tripped up by arguments like Paul's in Romans 6:1 "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?" And that couldn't be further from what was being taught in our church. Paul's reply is actually pretty strong, "By no means!" The Cottonpatch Gospel paraphrases with a very southern, "Hell no!" (Sorry if that offends...but for me, it perfectly fits!)
Boyd says, "Whenever the grace of God is preached uncompromisingly, we should expect people who have a fleshly mind to have this misunderstanding (Rom 8:6-7; I Cor 2:14). But it is a misunderstanding!" But I tell you what...every week when I left those services, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was loved...with an unsurpassable, unconditional, unfathomable Love like I would never experience apart from a relationship with my Abba. This was at a time in my life when I absolutely needed to know this...unequivocally...and I was blessed to have a pastor telling me (and hundreds of others) this message almost weekly. Not by coincidence, we came into possession of Boyd's book because he gave it to Dale.
All these years later, I'm at a different place emotionally, spiritually and even physically. Yet, God's love remains the same. But, there are parts of this book that I feel like I'm reading for the first time and I am soaking it up...I guess I'm at a place where I absolutely need to know the Love of God again...and I think I know why He's brought me back to this book at this time.
The message that has really impacted me, I don't even remember reading before. It's so deeply meaningful that I think I must have just missed it completely the first time. I'll do my best to put it into words...mostly Boyd's words though.
When Jesus died on the cross, He ascribed unsurpassable worth to me, to you, to everyone. And because He participates in the Triune relationship with God and the Holy Spirit, they too, ascribed unsurpassable worth to us. Since I have believed (put my trust with) Jesus, I am in Christ. Paul says, we no longer live, but Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20). Because of this...I too participate in the Love of the Father, through Jesus.
Then here's what's been sinking in and I've been delighting in: As we allow this Love to transform our hearts, our minds and our very lives...we become confident of who we are in Christ. I am loved by the very God of the universe...so it doesn't matter what someone else may think of me. I become assured of my standing before God and it completely revolutionizes who I am...and how I love.
The subtitle to this book is "Turning from Judgment to the Love of God" and as we embrace His Love...open up every part of our lives to His perfect Love...we can't help but want to live out this Love with others. Jesus told us the two greatest commandments were to love God with all of our self and to love others as we love ourselves. As Boyd puts it, He was banking everything on Love. Because of this, we shouldn't be asking ourselves if we've conquered a particular sin in our life, if we have the best facility or programs or even if we're growing our churches exponentially...miracles don't even matter. The one "measuring rod", so to speak, that we can even consider using is "Are we growing in our capacity to love all people?"
So when you look at my life, if you're judging me by any other standard, you are not judging according to God's commandments. Simply ask, "Is she growing in her capacity to love all people?"
I'm still formulating this all in my mind...still chewing on it...asking God to put this all together for me to understand with His discernment, not my own, but the conviction that Chan, Platt, Stearns and others share in their books regarding saving the lost and dying world is valid...for the most part, we in the American church are not reaching out to those all over the world who have not even heard the name of Jesus let alone been helped to understand the healing power of His Love.
Is it too great of leap to say that it may be because we haven't opened up our own lives to the power of His Love? If I truly believe that God, through the life and death of Jesus Christ ascribed unsurpassable worth to my life and allows me to participate in His Love, why wouldn't I want to shout that out to the whole world?
There is a direct correlation to the increase in Love I have opened myself up to and how much more I'm noticing the need for Love in others. For months I've been saying it's God replacing my desires with His. Well at it's most basic, His desire is to Love all...so it should be my desire too, right?
While I admire David Platt, Francis Chan and the many others that have been challenging me to get outside of my own egocentricity, I'm beginning to see that maybe we simply need to start with proclaiming God's Love. Once we grasp that...even while still in the process of grasping it...as we're filled to overflowing with this boundless Love of God...we won't be able to stop ourselves from proclaiming it to anyone who will listen.
Just in case I wasn't catching on to what He was trying to say, He brought me back to this passage in Psalm 119:29-32.
Remove the false way from me,
And graciously grant me Your law.
I have chosen the faithful way;
I have placed Your ordinances before me.
I cling to Your testimonies;
O LORD, do not put me to shame!
I shall run the way of Your commandments,
For You will enlarge my heart.
When the false love that this world offers is removed and I place His ordinances, before me and I choose His faithful (His really real reality) Way...running in His commandments to love Him with everything in me and to love everyone else as I love myself...what will He do? He will enlarge my heart.
That's why He brought me back to this book at this time. He wanted to remind me of His Love because there is a whole world out there that needs desperately to know it too! Amen!
Mentioned in this post:
Right?
It's exactly what I've needed the last week or so...and it's exactly what my Abba has been pouring out on me! It may sound very melodramatic, but the feeling has been like water being poured out onto a dry and weary land. The odd thing is, I didn't even realize how parched I was.
For several weeks I've been thinking that I should pick up Repenting of Religion by Gregory Boyd and read it again. It's been at least five years since I read it. I remembered it being good at the time and speaking directly to many issues in our life...but I couldn't quite get my head around why I should pick it up again now.
Finally I did...and my soul has been drinking it in...gulping is probably the more appropriate word. From the first day, I wanted to blog about it but have been hesitant because I really don't think I can do justice to the book without copying large portions of it here and I really do want to honor copyright law. So bear with me as a share (possibly over the next several days) the lessons I'm learning or being reminded of...because they are too amazing to not share them!
I guess I could sum up the whole book with the Beatles song title that I quoted in the title of this blog...but honestly, that's a bit simplistic. God's Love is simple, but in our culture we have to be very specific to understand what this Love is not: It's not phileo (brotherly love), eros (sexual love/passion) or storge (affection for a thing). Rather it is agape, an unconditional, never-changing, all-consuming love that is only perfectly fulfilled by God in the life of Jesus the Messiah.
I John 4:8, 16 tell us that God is Love! That's where we begin...and what an awesome place to start! Boyd quotes Peter Kreeft: "Love is God's essence. Nowhere else does Scripture express God's essence in this way. Scripture says God is just and merciful, but it does not say that God is justice or mercy itself. It does say that God is love, not just a lover. Love is God's very essence. Everything else is a manifestation of this essence to us, a relationship between this essence and us. This is the absolute, everything else is relative to it." (Knowing the Truth About God's Love: The One Thing We Can't Live Without)
God's very essence...I like that. Better yet, I've experienced that...and it's great to be reminded of it! In fact, as I've read through these 50 or so pages, I've been reminded a lot of a former pastor we were blessed to have. Weekly he spoke of God's Love and how we are all "loved, accepted and forgiven" and to be honest, there were some people that didn't like to hear that so often. That makes them sound harsh or somehow bad...and that's not what I mean at all. I think they just got tripped up by arguments like Paul's in Romans 6:1 "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?" And that couldn't be further from what was being taught in our church. Paul's reply is actually pretty strong, "By no means!" The Cottonpatch Gospel paraphrases with a very southern, "Hell no!" (Sorry if that offends...but for me, it perfectly fits!)
Boyd says, "Whenever the grace of God is preached uncompromisingly, we should expect people who have a fleshly mind to have this misunderstanding (Rom 8:6-7; I Cor 2:14). But it is a misunderstanding!" But I tell you what...every week when I left those services, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was loved...with an unsurpassable, unconditional, unfathomable Love like I would never experience apart from a relationship with my Abba. This was at a time in my life when I absolutely needed to know this...unequivocally...and I was blessed to have a pastor telling me (and hundreds of others) this message almost weekly. Not by coincidence, we came into possession of Boyd's book because he gave it to Dale.
All these years later, I'm at a different place emotionally, spiritually and even physically. Yet, God's love remains the same. But, there are parts of this book that I feel like I'm reading for the first time and I am soaking it up...I guess I'm at a place where I absolutely need to know the Love of God again...and I think I know why He's brought me back to this book at this time.
The message that has really impacted me, I don't even remember reading before. It's so deeply meaningful that I think I must have just missed it completely the first time. I'll do my best to put it into words...mostly Boyd's words though.
When Jesus died on the cross, He ascribed unsurpassable worth to me, to you, to everyone. And because He participates in the Triune relationship with God and the Holy Spirit, they too, ascribed unsurpassable worth to us. Since I have believed (put my trust with) Jesus, I am in Christ. Paul says, we no longer live, but Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20). Because of this...I too participate in the Love of the Father, through Jesus.
Then here's what's been sinking in and I've been delighting in: As we allow this Love to transform our hearts, our minds and our very lives...we become confident of who we are in Christ. I am loved by the very God of the universe...so it doesn't matter what someone else may think of me. I become assured of my standing before God and it completely revolutionizes who I am...and how I love.
The subtitle to this book is "Turning from Judgment to the Love of God" and as we embrace His Love...open up every part of our lives to His perfect Love...we can't help but want to live out this Love with others. Jesus told us the two greatest commandments were to love God with all of our self and to love others as we love ourselves. As Boyd puts it, He was banking everything on Love. Because of this, we shouldn't be asking ourselves if we've conquered a particular sin in our life, if we have the best facility or programs or even if we're growing our churches exponentially...miracles don't even matter. The one "measuring rod", so to speak, that we can even consider using is "Are we growing in our capacity to love all people?"
So when you look at my life, if you're judging me by any other standard, you are not judging according to God's commandments. Simply ask, "Is she growing in her capacity to love all people?"
I'm still formulating this all in my mind...still chewing on it...asking God to put this all together for me to understand with His discernment, not my own, but the conviction that Chan, Platt, Stearns and others share in their books regarding saving the lost and dying world is valid...for the most part, we in the American church are not reaching out to those all over the world who have not even heard the name of Jesus let alone been helped to understand the healing power of His Love.
Is it too great of leap to say that it may be because we haven't opened up our own lives to the power of His Love? If I truly believe that God, through the life and death of Jesus Christ ascribed unsurpassable worth to my life and allows me to participate in His Love, why wouldn't I want to shout that out to the whole world?
There is a direct correlation to the increase in Love I have opened myself up to and how much more I'm noticing the need for Love in others. For months I've been saying it's God replacing my desires with His. Well at it's most basic, His desire is to Love all...so it should be my desire too, right?
While I admire David Platt, Francis Chan and the many others that have been challenging me to get outside of my own egocentricity, I'm beginning to see that maybe we simply need to start with proclaiming God's Love. Once we grasp that...even while still in the process of grasping it...as we're filled to overflowing with this boundless Love of God...we won't be able to stop ourselves from proclaiming it to anyone who will listen.
Just in case I wasn't catching on to what He was trying to say, He brought me back to this passage in Psalm 119:29-32.
Remove the false way from me,
And graciously grant me Your law.
I have chosen the faithful way;
I have placed Your ordinances before me.
I cling to Your testimonies;
O LORD, do not put me to shame!
I shall run the way of Your commandments,
For You will enlarge my heart.
When the false love that this world offers is removed and I place His ordinances, before me and I choose His faithful (His really real reality) Way...running in His commandments to love Him with everything in me and to love everyone else as I love myself...what will He do? He will enlarge my heart.
That's why He brought me back to this book at this time. He wanted to remind me of His Love because there is a whole world out there that needs desperately to know it too! Amen!
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