LOVE MY ENEMIES? SERIOUSLY?

You have heard it said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.  John 5:43 & 44

The good news of the gospel is sometimes hard news with hard directives.  In the worst scenarios of human conflict, the gospel is the only truth that makes sense.  Christ calls us to love rather than loath our enemies.  Seriously!

One of the worst situations today is the Hamas-Israeli war in Gaza.  The provocations of Hamas rockets launched into Israel and the massive Israeli response of bombardment occasions several tragic outcomes: 1) the enormously imbalanced scale of violence and death (Israel:56; Gaza: 1,400+ including children*); 2) the inability to achieve  a substantial cease fire, never mind a lasting peace;  3) the loss of Israel's moral credibility in the world; 4) the unbending, strengthened resolve, by all Islamic nations in Africa and the Middle East, to achieve the complete destruction of Israel.

When my children (now in their thirties) were little, I remember one of their spats that became physical.  They hurt each other.  When I asked who started it, my daughter said, “He hit me back first!”  There was no way to discern the origins of their mutual hostilities at that moment.  It did no good to force them to say to each other “I’m sorry!”  In the first place, they didn’t really mean it.  It wasn’t in their hearts to articulate sorrow for hitting each other.  Secondly, if they did regret their contribution to the hostility, regret gives no guarantee that they would act lovingly toward one another in the future.  Thirdly, even in the context of regret, it is not the same as repentance.  Repentance is sorely needed.

Repentance is sorely needed in the Palestine-Israel conflict by both sides.  But what is repentance?  It is making a 180 degree turn and walking in the other direction.  It is a massive change of behavior because of a change of heart. We know something about repentance when we ask God for forgiveness of sins and walk with Christ in the direction he is walking, in holiness and righteousness.

Four things are needed if Palestinian-Israeli peace is to be reached:  1) The Palestinians need to get rid of Hamas; 2) the peace talks must be pursued to a successful conclusion; 3) A two-state solution (a homeland for Palestine and one for Israel) must be put in place and supported by all nations. This can only happen if Israel stops building more settlements; and 4) the entire Christian world must bring all of this before God in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to do what no military or political intervention alone will accomplish.  Finally, both sides need to repent.  Only the intervention of God can redeem the deep, horrible sin at the center of the conflict and bring new life for all.

Now, unto Him who is able to do immeasurably 

more than we ask or imagine . . . glory!

Ephesians 3:21 & 21

*undocumented statistic - source: The Economist, Aug. 2014

IS "OBEY" ANOTHER FOUR LETTER WORD

Yesterday I had a close call.  On a quiet, back country road, I pulled up to a stop sign with no other cars around.  I came almost to a full stop, but not quite.  I coasted through.  Out of nowhere, there appeared a police car in my rear view mirror.  My heart jumped.  Where did he come from?  Did he see my bogus stop?  Is he going to pull me over?  What can I say to him to mitigate my civil sin?  As it turned out, I kept going and he turned the corner.  Whew!  What a relief.  There was no ticket, no accountability, only cheap grace without consequences.  

My heart settled back down.  But my mind remained in a high gear.  I had a cognitive workout.  All the way home my mind rambled over things like obedience, accountability, faithfulness to civil covenants.  I reflected on a life of rolling through stop signs, always intentionally driving 10% over the speed limit, just enough to not get stopped.  If the speed limit were 60 mph, I would push it to 66 mph, but no further.  I then thought, one’s whole life could be like that, only sinning a little, enough to not really get caught.  Is that true?  Do I speed just a little, coast through the stop signs just a little, bend the truth to those I love just a little, fudge my taxes just a little, pad my resume’ just a little, and so on?  It can be a way of life, a life of cumulative sin.

My narrow escape from a ticket yesterday made me think how sin is cumulative.  One does not have to be an extortionist or murderer to be deep in sin.  The small sins add up.  Quicksand is slow, but effective.  Sin is sin and it is an abomination to God.  He cannot and will not have presence in the midst of sin.  He expects faithfulness and obedience to his commands and directives foremost of which is to love the Lord with all our heart and our neighbor as well as we love ourselves.  Jesus made it crystal clear:  “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love . . .”  (John 15:10).  Obedience is not something that is easily embraced at this time and in the present culture.  I remember saying to my kids when they were young, "If you love me, you will obey me."  The same goes with God.  If we love Him, we will show it in obedience. The Word of God is clear.  If we truly love the Lord we will obey his commands, and be better for it.  We will repent (turn about face) and walk in the same direction as Christ following him.

I confess that yesterday may not be the last time I coast through a stop sign.  If I do in the future, it will be because I was not paying enough attention to my driving.  As the song goes, “I want to live right that God may use me, at any time or any where.”  That means doing my part to obey civil laws and keep my covenant that I made when society gave me a drivers license.  More importantly, it means being faithful to walk every moment of every day in the same direction with Christ and not turn back.  Obey need not be just another four letter word.  It can be our means of showing God that we take His word and His love seriously.

GUTENBERG VS GOOGLE

We are migrating from the Gutenberg to the Google era.  Today it became very evident in the Googlesque behavior of my eleven-month-old grandson.  While holding him on my lap, I was reading to him the most elementary of childrens books, See The Rabbit by Janet and Allan Ahlberg.  Before I could turn to the first page, the little guy began swiping his little index finger across the cover several times.  He was trying to move from the picture on the cover to the next picture just like one would do with the I Phone.

A few weeks ago, I let him see the pictures on my I Phone.  I swiped my finger across the screen to the next picture and then to the next one.  At age 10 months, he caught on immediately and began doing it.  Then he learned to turn the phone off and on.  Now he generalizes to bigger things.  He crawls (cant’ walk yet) over to the wide screen Samsung TV and turns that on.  As you might expect, he drags his finger across the TV screen trying to change that picture too.  It really is unbelievable how quickly they learn, especially when the technology is interactive.

For now with him, Google reigns!  Gutenberg needs to recover.  We are committed grandparents and will read children’s books to him every day we have him in our home.  When a child sits on your lap, hears your voice reading a book, and feels the warmth of your presence, score one for Gutenberg.  We want our little grandson to appreciate both the written word on a real page and the emergent wonder of today’s and tomorrow’s technology.  As importantly, we want him to be able to have real face to face, interpersonal conversation with others on whatever he reads.  Finally, most importantly, we want him to know one book backwards and forward, in and out, more than any other.  We want him to know the Sacred Scriptures of the Bible, God’s Word.  As he grows older, whether by Gutenberg or Google and likely by both, we will encourage him to take in and consume the Bread of Life.

Train up a child in the way he should go and

when he is  old he will not depart from it.

PROVERBS 22:6

EYES FIXED ON THE BALL

“Keep your eye on the ball” is a saying that we usually hear in the sport of baseball, but it resonates when we think of the amazing 2014 World Cup performance of the USA soccer team’s goalie, Tim Howard.  He had sixteen saves in the knockout round match against Belgium, something that has not happened in the past forty-eight years, since 1966.  Howard did this consistently throughout the entire game from beginning to end.  The explosion of popular response includes his new nickname, US Secretary of Defense.  His achievement affirms the importance of keeping your eyes fixed on the ball.

The Bible says something similar, but far more important.  We are to keep our eyes on Jesus as the pattern to be followed.  In the letter to the Hebrews (12:2), we read, “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end.”  From beginning to end for us includes from our initial salvation from sin forward to the “unfolding of Christ’s own character in the life of the believer,” holiness. (Frederick Coutts, The Splendor of Holiness, p. 26)

By looking to Jesus

Like him we shall be,

Our friends in our conduct

His likeness shall see.

O God who reveals yourself most clearly through your Son, Jesus, we yearn for your grace to ever keep our eyes fixed on Christ believing that from beginning to end we shall be like him in ever-increasing measure.  We seek to be filled to the measure of your fullness as you seek to indwell our hearts and lives.  Amen.

IN PRAISE OF TOUGH TIMES

Our lives ebb and flow. There are days when life seems so wonderful and others in which the burdens we bear seem too heavy. It is in our nature to want the times of flow to continue indefinitely.  We want the high of the mountain top experience to last forever.  But they don’t and it is to our benefit.  The waves we ride are temporary and eventually crash on the shore.  The low places of doubt, despair, and feelings of God’s abandonment may seem eternal, but never last.

In the ebb times, God is faithful and does his deepest work. It is then when He shapes us into his likeness.  He gives us holy strengthen when we lean on Him. He makes us into the people he desires us to be. Trials and tribulation can’t be avoided.  Spiritual dry spells may make us wonder if God has abandoned us or is even real.  There are also times when the biggest

question is "Why, O Lord?"  The Book of James speaks to such things.  James explicitly says be joyful when difficulties arise in our lives (James 1:2-5).  Difficulties permit our faith to be tested.  Tests develop perseverance and perseverance occasions maturity and completeness.  It sets the stage for wisdom.

 

In the difficult times, in spiritual dry spells, and in times of doubt about God, He is most at work shaping the clay of our lives.  We can take joy knowing that the school of hard times is the training ground of our character. When the easy times come and life seems wonderful, there’s little or no lessons nor wisdom. The tough times occasion reflection and strengthen our faith.  Take the long view.  Discover that the ebb times never last, nor do the times of flow. At all times, give thanks to God who is our sufficiency.

 “Tough times don’t last.  Tough people do.”  - Robert Schuller

“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” 

1 Peter 5:10.