Tag Archives: love

Set Free To Love

Bible Study, , , ,

SET FREE TO LOVE

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Galatians 5:13-15.

Freedom! Everybody wants to be free. But free from what? Most people think that freedom means no laws, no restraints, no boundaries, to do as they please. The problem with this kind of so-called “freedom” is that it clashes with everyone else’s freedom and creates the worst kind of chaos.

Imagine driving in a city where there are no traffic rules! Half of the motorists would be dead within the first twenty four hours. How long would it take for drivers to realise that staying alive meant giving way to the next vehicle and being courteous on the road? I live in a country were a certain group in the population thinks that traffic laws do not apply to them. As a result, the accident rate and number of road deaths is very high.

Every human being is born with an internal slave-driver far worse than any rules or regulations. It’s called selfishness. But why is selfishness so destructive? It not only clashes with everyone else’s selfishness; it also causes chaos within a person. Think of the emotional trauma another person’s selfishness causes to you – your home is invaded and your property destroyed or stolen because someone else decided that he wanted what you have. A loved one’s life is taken because a murderer chose to eliminate him or her. And so on.

Then there’s the internal destruction that selfishness does to you. You clash with a friend or a family member; both parties are angry, resentful, and bitter. You believe you are right and so does he or she. Neither will back down. A deep rift grows and you don’t communicate for months or years. How do you feel? Free? At peace? Full of love towards the other person? Humble? No way! You are clogged up with emotional baggage. You can’t sleep at night. You cannot get free of the other person. You are enslaved by your emotions.

These are all the consequences of the worst slave-driver of all. The problem is that trying to obey God’s rules without a new heart and a new nature only makes the slavery to guilt and fear worse. Jesus is the only one who has the power to set us free. He did this, first of all, by getting rid of our sin. He paid our debt so that it could be cancelled and deleted from our record. Then He gave us an insurance policy against our falling short of God’s standards. We are covered by His righteousness. When we fail, He says, “It’s okay. I’ve got you covered!”

That does not mean that we can go off and engage in “freedom” to live as we like because we are covered by the righteousness of Jesus. That would be as foolish as getting involved in as many vehicle accidents as we like because our insurance policy covers us! Collisions with other vehicles are dangerous because we can be seriously injured or killed. Our car will never be the same either. Just as an insurance policy is not a licence to have accidents, so God’s forgiveness and Jesus’ righteousness are not a licence to live as we like.

But, more than that, God changed our hearts. He gave us a new heart and a new nature and, on top of that, He gave us His Spirit – living right inside of us – so that we want to and have the power to live unselfishly.

How can we stay safe on the road? By obeying the traffic laws. How can we stay safe in the kingdom of God? By living within the boundaries of the kingdom. So Paul says, “Don’t go off and sin like crazy just because God has set you free. Use your freedom to care for other people. In this way you will stay free from your slave-drivers. Then you will be safe within the boundaries of God’s kingdom”

True freedom is not experienced by destroying one another but by loving and serving one another. You cannot serve yourself and other people. If you choose to serve yourself, watch out because you are on a downward path to destruction. If you serve others, you will be like Jesus; you will be doing the very thing that destroys the habit of selfishness, just as being generous destroys the habit of being greedy.

You cannot be both. Love, because you have been set free to love.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

The Future Is Assured

Bible Study, , , ,

THE FUTURE IS ASSURED

“Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6.

Surely? David is making an assumption, but based on what? If this is what the past has taught me, then surely my future is assured. Past experience has shown me that I have a shepherd who has cared and provided for me throughout my life, rescued me from my own foolish ways, and brought me this far in safety. Surely, then, I can say that the same goodness and love that has followed me all my life will be there to take me home.

What is this goodness and love that has followed me all the days of my life? If we replace the word “goodness” with the word “functionality”, something amazing comes to light.

“And God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…” Genesis 1:31a.

“What did God mean when He said, “It was very good”? Was is pleasing to His eye? The Hebrew word tov is best translated as “functional” rather than “good”. God saw His creation as functioning properly, or, as we might say, working like a well-oiled machine.” (The Living Words Volume 1 by Jeff Benner, published 2007 by Virtualbookworm.com Publishing Inc, P O Box 9949, College Station, TX 77845, USA).

God’s creation worked. Everything functioned perfectly and interactively, revealing a God of perfect order and unity. Since God is good (functional), everything He made was functional because it reflected Him. It was Adam, through his disobedience, who introduced dysfuntionality, causing every part of the universe to go out of sync.

David learned through the course of his life that, when he submitted himself to the shepherd and walked in His ways, he became functional, all the circumstances of his life working together for his benefit. He also learned, to his dismay, that disobedience plunged him, his family and his kingdom back into dyfunctionality. Unfortunately, the consequences of disobedience were far-reaching, bringing dysfuntionality to generations after him which not even repentance could reverse.

Now let’s read this verse with new understanding:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28.

And we know that God is using all the circumstances of those who love Him to restore them to functionality again because that’s His purpose. He wants us to live in harmony with Him and with each other just as His Son, Jesus did as a human being on earth. Since it is He determined goal make us functional again, He will dog our footsteps, day and night, with goodness to achieve what He has set out to do.

And what about love? The King James Version translates the word chesed as “mercy”. It is the mercy of God which He shows to us within a covenant bond in which He pledges His everlasting love. It is an unbreakable bond which has been sealed in blood. God has promised to do good to His covenant people always. His goodness and mercy are relentless companions wherever we go because He cannot and will not break His promise.

“I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.” Jeremiah 32:40.

In spite of Israel’s unfaithfulness, God pledged to do good to them within the covenant of His chesed, His loving kindness.

Because Yahweh, my shepherd’s goodness and love relentlessly pursue me, day after day in this life, I am assured that I will eventually be made to abide and remain forever, in His eternal day, in His name, which is a fortress of safety and protection.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

A Higher Law

Bible Study, , ,

A HIGHER LAW

“Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, to that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer eating in love. Do not by your eating, destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know to be good be spoken of as evil.” Romans 14:12-16.

In the end, it’s not about me. It’s about you.

If I cling stubbornly to my rights and not consider yours, I may, in the end, destroy your faith instead of building you up.

That’s the responsibility of the one who is strong in faith and free of rituals and taboos because he sees that nothing in the physical world has the power to affect his spirit. But the strong one does not have the right to beat a weaker person with his freedom if he or she does not think the same way. It depends on how a person’s conscience has been shaped from childhood.

Imagine, for example, how difficult it must have been for the first Jewish believers to set aside their scruples about not eating with Gentiles, or even entering their homes, for that matter. They were taught from babyhood to believe that it was wrong to mix with “unclean” people. To them, Gentiles were unclean because they did not carry out all the purification rituals of the Jewish faith.

And what about the Gentiles? Most of them would have been idol worshippers. They had their own beliefs and rituals, not the least being the power that the gods, represented by their idols, had over their lives. Meat offered to the gods was sold off at the meat market to be eaten at home. How much power did that meat have over them when they ate it? It all depended on what they believed.

It was difficult for these different groups of people to shed their beliefs and embrace the truth instead that Jesus Christ had set them free from these things to worship God alone because He is the only one with power over their lives. It did not happen instantaneously when they believed.  It was a gradual process that happened as they renewed their minds with the truth. There were many “young” believers who still had scruples about doing or not doing the things that belonged to their old lives.

In the end, it is fear that holds a person in bondage to his old practices; fear that, if he lets them go, something bad will happen to him. That’s how Satan keeps a person in bondage. He deceives him into believing that he has power over him and he has, as long as he goes on believing his lies. But Jesus exposed and defeated the devil through the cross. Until that truth replaces Satan’s deception, that person will be held captive to the false belief and go on living as though it were true.

However, the person who has been set free from his false beliefs must remember that he lives by a higher law – the law of love. He must not use his freedom as a weapon against someone who still struggles with his weak conscience. Since he is free from false scruples, he is also free not to parade his freedom in front of others who are not yet free. Instead, he can quietly abstain in the presence of a weaker brother or sister so as not to offend them.

Paul concluded:

“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification.” Romans 14:17-19.

There you have it! Once again, in simple and practical terms, it’s about doing the right thing to benefit others more than ourselves. This attitude requires confidence in God. It is not our job to fix others who are not as far along on the journey of faith as we are. Jesus is their Master too. He is perfecting them just as surely as He is perfecting us. We can trust Him to do His work of grace in their lives without our help.

Our task is to administer grace where and when we can, and not the least by having a gracious attitude towards those who are behind us on the way.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

No Debt

Bible Study, , , ,

NO DEBT

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:8-10.

Paul, you make it sound so easy! Simple, yes, but not easy.

But this is what the law of God is all about. It was never intended to be a military code of conduct, but rather a description of what doing life together as a family of God’s children should look like.

First of all, Paul said, get out of debt and stay out of debt. There should be no reason to be in debt if we follow God’s economic system, even if we do fall on hard times now and then. That’s what the community of God’s people is all about. Whatever God has given us is not exclusively ours to be used selfishly but to be shared with others according to their need.

In the constitution God gave to regulate the lives of His people, the goal was equality, never the ever-widening gap between rich and poor. Of course, that does not sanction laziness. Rather, it fills in the gaps for those who suffer reverses in the ordinary course of events. Paul dealt with this principle in his second letter to the Corinthian church.

The believers in Jerusalem were in poverty because of famine. Paul campaigned for help from the churches in Greece and now it was time for them to make good on their promise.

“Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need so that, in turn, their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'” 2 Corinthians 8:11-15.

In the end, debt is a slur on the name of God for at least two reasons: firstly, because in some cases, debt is the outcome of covetousness, and covetousness is an expression of discontent. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is a covert way of telling God that He has short-changed me! He is unfair because what He has given me is less than what He has given someone else – so I remedy it by going into debt.

Secondly, because I have not done my duty to God by fulfilling my responsibility to those whom to God has told me to give: to Him first because He requires the firstfruits of all my increase (which is to be given to my spiritual authority to support him and his family); my tithe to the storehouse (my local church); my family tithe to take care of my family’s future, and the poor, the alien, the widow and the orphan every third “harvest”.

Of course, sometimes debt is unavoidable, and this is where the family of God steps in to help. Unexpected illness, loss of a job, a natural disaster, whatever depletes the family’s resources is a call for the wider family to come to the rescue until the sufferers are back on their feet again.

But there is a debt that can never be repaid in full – the continuing debt to love one another. Why does Paul call it a “debt”? Why do we owe love to all people? Love is not like a sum of money which we owe someone and can repay in full. It is an ongoing debt to God because of His inexhaustible love for us. We can only repay our debt of love to Him by loving His children and, because He continues to love us, by continuing to love others as long as we have breath.

All the intricate and seemingly tedious details of the Law are intended for one purpose – to meet the needs of others at our expense. Loving others is not about being sentimental over them whether we like them or not. It’s about serving others by taking care of their needs when and where we can, regardless of who they are because that’s what God does for us.

And it never stops…

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Spiritual Gifts – For What?

Bible Study, , ,

SPIRITUAL GIFTS – FOR WHAT?

“We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is  prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord.” Romans 12:6-11.

Have you noticed how Paul focuses on the non-spectacular functions in the church here? Are these any less gifts of the Spirit than, say, speaking in tongues or healing? What makes us think that it takes the power of the Holy Spirit to do a miracle but not to be generous or to show mercy? The one reveals God’s power through you, the other, in you otherwise, the old natural selfish nature will still be controlling you attitudes.

The use of spiritual gifts is not so much the issue but the motive for which they are used to benefit others. If you use your spiritual gift as a platform to gain anything for yourself, be it visibility, popularity, admiration, accolades or any other personal glory, there will be consequences in the end. Ananias and Sapphira are a case in point. They sold property, gave some to the church as if it were all, wanting to appear generous in competition with Barnabas; but they were quickly exposed by the Holy Spirit in Peter and put to death!

Is not this the reason why Paul warned his Roman readers (and us) not to be conceited but to think realistically about ourselves, and not suppose that we are indispensable or have to do everything. It takes humility to admit that we can do one thing well but not something else, and to be content to be who we are. When we can take responsibility for our part, and not try to do what we cannot do, we fit in comfortably with the other members of the body and, in partnership with one another, we can accomplish what Jesus wants His body to do.

Once again, it’s not about us – it’s about Him. Our task, in harmony with one another, is to bring restoration to each member through the use of our gifts and, in this way, to mirror Him to the world around us. The gifts He gives us are His, not ours, and are for the benefit of others, not ourselves. But, like everything God does, the blessing always boomerangs back on us!

We do what we are gifted to do through His grace, but it our attitude that determines whether we are blessed in return, or whether we stand in line for judgment as did Ananias and Sapphira. Behind the attitude with which we use our gifts lies another attitude – our attitude to God. The Bible calls it “the fear of the Lord”. When we have the right attitude towards Him, it will regulate the motives and attitudes we have towards ourselves and the ones we serve.

Solomon summed it up aptly in Proverbs 9:10. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”  Wisdom is, very simply, doing the right thing. When we have a reverential awe of God, remembering who He is, we will not take what He says lightly or treat Him with contempt because, as Solomon concluded in Ecclesiastes 12:14, “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.” In the end, God is inescapable.

Every thought, attitude and motive will one day be exposed in His light. I am sure none of us would like to see our selfish and self-seeking motives in neon lights for everyone to see! How can we prevent our old corrupted nature from intruding into our ministry and service in the body of Christ?

Paul gives us some simple but effective steps:

1. Give God your body for His use and change the way you think – from your thoughts to His thoughts. That comes about as we spend time in His Word.

2. Put yourself in the right perspective. You are not the whole – only a small part. You cannot be and do everything.

3. Do what you are gifted to do and do it faithfully with zeal and fervour.

4. It’s not about competition but about harmony, working towards a greater goal, the health of the whole body. Keep the bigger picture in mind and fit into it with joy.

5. Wrap it up in a blanket of love – for Jesus and for His body. Put Jesus and others before yourself Meet the needs of others at your expense.

Imagine what the church would look like if we all did that!

Acknowledgement

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.