02.06.10
Posted in relationship at 12:24 am by Administrator
With Valentine’s Day coming up next week, how do you define love? Some describe it as a feeling. Others claim it’s an attachment between people. Still others view it as a physical act between those who are intimate. To their defense, all of them are partial right. True love (Agape) is a love that is given without reason or without cause. It is an unconditional love that takes no account for past wrongs and can look past hurts. Agape is a love that one gives to someone when they are the least loveable and when they don’t deserve it. I once had a person say “So are you saying I don’t deserve it? This is what I mean! You think so little of me.” But that person was totally missing the true point of agape love. It doesn’t matter what issues are going on with you, with agape love you are going to be loved regardless. This is the Love that God offers to us.
Where do we find this kind of love? Well we find this kind of love in our relationships. In relationships where this agape love is practiced, the relationship flourishes. That is why having a relationship with God is so important. God is love. He is exemplifies love in the form of the perfect relationship marked by agape unconditional love in the form of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It guides us in all that we do. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,] but have not love, I gain nothing.”
So if we do not have love or relationships that our love can move in, we must perceive in reality that we have absolutely nothing. We can do all the best things in the world but without having this love, it is all for naught.
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02.03.10
Posted in relationship at 6:35 pm by Administrator
In the Southern United States, there is a vine called the kudzu vine. It wasn’t native to the area but it became the “vine that ate the South”. It’s a good illustration of how unforgivenness can take over our lives. The similarity lies in that it shouldn’t be native to our souls. When you let the kudzu vine run rampant, it grows into and upon everything until everything else is choked out by it’s invasive nature. Unforgiveness is like that. Unforgiveness changes a person. It sets a seed inside someone that grows into a root of bitterness and resentment. Eventually when we hold onto past hurts through unforgiveness, it grows upon us until everything else is choked out. Recently I read about someone who was struggling with unforgiveness with someone close to her. “I have a heart full of bitterness and ice. I can’t bring myself to trust … even though I need to.” she says. She then goes on to talk about how she had vowed never to let the person in again. She talks about how she had built up walls around herself. She knew she wanted to be this person’s friend again but because of her unforgiveness she was always “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” So she could never give this person the chance to reconcile with her even though the person desperately wanted to and in her heart she wanted to as well.
Where is unforgiveness invading into your life? Unforgiveness is also like a wound that festers with gangrene. If something is not done to clean out the wound and let it heal properly, it will poison the body and threaten the life of the person. In the case of unforgiveness, it poisons all of our relationships just like gangrene does to the body and can cause us to destroy those things that sustain us. Many times, we just have to let things go and “clean out the emotional wounds” in our hearts before is kills our heart, the very source of our life. Going back to our original illustration, the only way to deal with unforgivenness is to clear away the vines and dig out the very roots so it doesn’t grow back.
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02.02.10
Posted in relationship at 9:25 am by Administrator
All too many people get caught up in how to do their Christianity. You go to any church around, you will see people in the church who are more worried about how they should act, how they should dress, am I doing the motion to this ritual right, and in essence how they appear to everyone else. This brings to mind the verse where the humble tax collector who is prostrate before God praying fervently to reach him where he was at. Yet the Pharisee next to him is praying a prayer that in essence says thank God I don’t look like this sinful tax collector even though his heart can’t compare to the very person he is measuring himself up against. How many people in our churches today, do this very same prayer as the Pharisee did? They pray out loud with flowing words that sound great and a lot of people are impressed by the eloquence. Yet some of the best prayers I have ever had, seen or heard were those of people, who like the tax collector were broken and crying out to God. They were not eloquent but full of heart. It not about the words, it’s more about the conversation.
People raise their hands while singing and then look around to see if others are watching what they are doing. They are people going through the motions like the Pharisee. They are doing them to put on a show for others in church, Sunday school class or bible study to see. Most people fail to realize that we can do the right things for the wrong reasons. We can give to the poor (a very noble thing) and do it to be recognized and seen (the wrong reason). That is why we have that verse in Matthew where people come up to Jesus saying Lord, Lord didn’t we do all these things in your name? And his response is “get away from me for I knew you not.” So if our motives are suspect on the deeds that we do, then how can we determine how we are doing with God?
The answer lies in our relationship with our God. Now I know there are many people out there who are skeptics saying “Yeah, they always say that all you need is a personal relationship with Jesus and you are saved.” In reality, it is truly that simple yet at the same time it is truly that complex. Relationships don’t grow deep over night. You have to nurture them and invest in them. This takes time and dedication Yet, it is our relationship with Jesus that truly saves us. Now I know there may be a lot of people who will counter that we are saved by faith alone or faith plus works. That is not the debate in which I want to participate. Yet however you believe, those both come out from our relationship with Christ. This is about what it means to be in a true relationship with someone where each side is doing things that are in the best interest of those that they are in relationship with above their own self-centered needs. Yet God is there whether we deserve it or not and always seeks the best for us. That is a tough standard to live up to but Jesus does it with us. So the core of what I am saying is that too many people are focused on what they are doing something versus why they are doing it. In reality one should ask “How am I doing in my acceptance of the free gift that being in relationship with God offers and sharing that relationship with others?”
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