Loving Equals Keeping

"If you love Me, 

you will keep My commandments...

...But so the world may know that I love the Father, 

I do exactly as the Father commanded Me."

John 14:15, 31

When we walk in the truth of God's Word, when we obey it, we are being just like Jesus, and we are loving Jesus, just like He loved the Father.  This is our calling as believers - to love Jesus by keeping His commandments, by doing exactly what He says.  We should never grate at this because He has given His commandments out of His love for us.  He made us and He knows what's best for us.  Obeying always benefits us, and those around us.  

We need to practice daily repentance, which Jesus never did, or had to because as God, He is without sin.  The truth that we can greatly rejoice in, and rest in, is that Jesus obeyed perfectly, for us.  He loved the Father, perfectly for us.  What's left is to love Him by abiding with Him in His Word, by being with Him, by walking in His footsteps, striving to become more faithful in our obedience.

We will never be perfect at mirroring Jesus this side of heaven, but like Jesus, we are to hate sin, we are to sorrow over sin.  But unlike Him, we are also called to turn from sin - what He became for us, which is exactly what the Father wanted Him to do, and He obeyed, so we could be accepted and loved by the Father, and not forsaken.

Don't despair over your failures.  They don't define you.  What defines us is the love Jesus has for us.  Rejoice and be thankful in this love, and for Jesus' perfect obedience, for you, which is why you will always be loved, and welcomed by the Father.  

Jesus Took The Dashing

"Hear, O our God, how we are despised!  Return their reproach on their own head and give them up for plunder in a land of captivity.  Do not forgive their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out before You, for they have demoralized the builders."  Nehemiah 4:4, 5

Braveheart is a bloody movie.  It's about William Wallace, the Scotsman who led the rebellion against King Edward I of England.  Lots of blood is spilled throughout the movie, but I'm thinking particularly of the scene in which Wallace seeks revenge for the killing of his wife.  Limbs are sliced off.  Spears gored into torsos.  Heads are bludgeoned.  Throats are slashed.  Blood is splashed everywhere because of Wallace's vengeful anger.  That's quite a picture, isn't it?  It brought to mind the passage above, that Jon went over on Sunday in the sermon, and which we also covered in Bible Study yesterday.  In this passage, we see that Nehemiah is calling for the dashing of the enemies of Israel who are jeering at their rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.  Nehemiah desires that Israel's enemies remain under condemnation, with no hope of redemption.  Jon said in the sermon Sunday that some of scripture is prescriptive, that is, it tells us what we should be doing, and some of God's Word is descriptive, that is, it tells us what people are doing, but not necessarily what they should be doing.  This is a descriptive passage - Nehemiah should not have been calling for the wrath of God to come down on Israel's jeering reproachers. Yet, this is what we desire or how we feel sometimes about people, isn't it?  Praise God, His grace is continually washing over us and when we confess the sin of unrighteous, malicious anger, (anger can be righteous, but we are so poor at it) we are forgiven.  Jesus spilled His blood for the sins against us (and our own sin).  On this side of the cross, we don't call for our enemies to be dashed.  We are not to dash our enemies ourselves - those who mock us or deride us for our love for Jesus and His kingdom work.  We are not to dash anyone, for any reason, with words or hateful thoughts.  Jesus tells us:  I took the dashing, the jeering, the derision.  I was despised and rejected.  All that is left for you is to live with a spirit of forgiveness in your heart.  You, love your enemies and return evil with good and a curse with a blessing.  We are to carry a softness in our hearts towards those who hate us and mistreat us, and with God's grace and the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, we can choose graciousness under all mistreatment.

Daniel Turns Five

Getting so tall...

Loves to hug...

Favorite candy: suckers (Tootsie Pops)

First bike...

Loves to be silly...

Times 5...

Sweet smile...

Happy Birthday, Daniel!  

For more pictures, click here.

Deuteronomy 32:3b, 4 Defined

"Ascribe greatness to our God!

The Rock!

His work is perfect,

For all His ways are just;

A God of faithfulness and without injustice,

Righteous and upright is He."

Deuteronomy 32:3b, 4

An excerpt from the song of Moses...

Ascribe - attribute to; regard as belonging to; to credit or assign as to a cause or source

Greatness - distinguished; a state of superiority; being higher in degree or importance

God - the Creator and Ruler of the universe

Rock - someone (or something) that is extremely strong, reliable, immoveable.  

Work - activity involving effort (mental or physical) in order to achieve a purpose or result or to accomplish something

Perfect - as good as it is possible to be; completely free from faults or defects; no mistakes or flaws; without blemish

All - whole, entire, total amount

Ways - manner, modes, how someone does something

Just - treating people in a way that is morally right; guided by truth, reason, fairness; honorable and fair in one's dealings and actions

Faithfulness - keeping your promises; strict or thorough in the performance of a duty; true to one's word, promises, vows; steady

Without - in the absence of

Injustice - lack of fairness, unfair treatment or action

Righteous - morally right, virtuous; upright; without guilt or sin

Upright - strictly honorable, or honest unchanging standards, correctness

Jesus, You are the Creator and Ruler of the universe and are higher in degree and importance than anyone or anything else.   You are extremely strong and reliable and immoveable.  (No one comes close to Your power and strength and ability to protect!)  All the activities in which You engage, everything You accomplish -  is completely free of faults and defects and is as good as it is possible to be.  The total amount of how You do things is guided by truth, reason, fairness.  You are always honorable and fair in Your dealings and actions.  (You deal with all sin honestly and fairly and you dealt with my sin by paying the price I should have paid!)  You always keep Your promises.  You are true to Your word and always do what You say You will do.  With You there is no unfairness.  You are without guilt or sin and Your standards are honest and unchanging.  

What a great and mighty and wonderful God we love and serve and worship, who loves and cares for us!

This blog was inspired by this blog.  The defining method of study is a great way to spend time in the Word.  It will enlarge your view of God and in turn enlarge your heart towards Him.  He is worthy of our thoughts and our obedience and our praise!

Now For This Very Reason, Faith Sweats

"Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love."  
2 Peter 1:5-7

Right before Peter wrote these God-breathed words, he'd just finished explaining how the child of God has been given the gift of faith; that the child of God is wrapped in the righteousness of Jesus Christ; that the child of God has been given power to image Jesus more and more and this power is activated through the knowledge of Jesus Christ; that the glory and excellence of Jesus called us to salvation; that by the glory and excellence of Jesus we have magnificent promises, and, we've been made to partake in the nature of God and this has caused us to escape the decaying world system.  

To be brought from spiritual death into eternal life through Jesus Christ is amazingly breathtaking, isn't it?

The person and work of Jesus on our behalf, that He would give Himself to save us, calls for a correspondingly amazing response on our part and the Holy Spirit through Peter gives us seven qualities of which we are to increasingly supply - with constant, maximum effort.

Moral excellence - high moral, godly standards.

Knowledge - of God and His Word.  (Requires being in the Word.)

Self-control - holding our passions and appetites and desires under control.

Perseverance - having patience and endurance in doing what is right, without giving in, giving up, or complaining.

Godliness - honoring and adoring God with proper thoughts, actions, and feelings.

Brotherly kindness - having a fervent practical caring for others.

Love - seeking and supplying the highest good of another at the cost of even our lives.

How hard is your effort?

Where can you increase?

Not so Jesus will love you.  You are greatly loved and the love Jesus has for you will never stop and will be as great and as vast as it is now, throughout eternity.  

Put forth the effort, because of His great love for you.  God is glorious and wonderful in loving us and redeeming us.  Our response is to magnify His worthiness by being...

...just like Him.  

"In My Father's house are many dwelling places;
if it were not so, 
I would have told you;
for I go to prepare a place for you.
If I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again
and receive you to Myself,
that where I am,
there you may be also."

John 14:2,3

****************

"Sing for joy in the LORD,
O you righteous ones;
Praise is becoming to the upright.
Give thanks to the LORD with the lyre;
Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.
Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
For the word of the LORD is upright,
And all His work is done in faithfulness."

Psalm 33:1-4

****************

Sometimes it's fun to put different truths of scripture together...and think about them...and rejoice in them...

Living Water

Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life."

John 4:13,14

Yesterday my lead campus pastor, Pastor Bubba, preached out of John 4.  You might think like I did when I first heard his name, that this is a nickname, but we learned yesterday that Bubba is his given name.  It's on his birth certificate.  His young parents agreed - when his mother was pregnant, that if he were a boy, his father would get to name him and if he were a girl, his mother would get to name him - no arguing from the other half.  Bubba was a boy and having been born in the south and having a mother who kept to her word, Pastor Bubba proudly bears his name!  

Pastor Bubba stands at the door, every Sunday, greeting us warmly with a smile and a hand shake on our way in and he's there, saying good-bye to us with a smile and a handshake, on our way out.  The love of Jesus Christ splashes all over us each week, through Pastor Bubba.

Jesus is the Living Water.  When we drink from Jesus Christ, we will never thirst.  The water springing up from Jesus, who is eternal, is eternal life.  He is all satisfying, refreshing us daily with His abundant grace and lovingkindness and mercy and peace.  Satisfaction begins with Him and once begun, never ends.  When we share the good news of The Living Water in our place we are offering the only source of true joy and fulfillment.  True joy and fulfillment is knowing our sins are cleansed and forgiven - that we don't have to work for God's favor  because we are accepted and loved by God because of the love and sacrifice of the Living Water, for us.  When we look to anything else other than Jesus to satisfy, we will come up thirsty, again and again.  The blessing of complete satisfaction in Christ begins to flow with our repentance, with our turning from sin and from those things which don't truly satisfy - which ultimately take us down the path of misery and destruction.  When we drink from any other source other than the Living Water, we are dipping our buckets into a well of hot, gritty, desert sand...but when we drink from Jesus, we are dipping our buckets into the sweet, never ending, delightful presence of a loving, forgiving, Savior.