Tag: Hope

Love Is…

02/11/2014Spiritual Walk, , , , , , , , 11 Comments

ValentineTomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and I love it. I always have. I’ve enjoyed it ever since I made my first poster-board Valentine card holder in grade school. I loved being courted by Brian and showered with Valentines in college. And, as a mom, I loved helping Dan and Bob write their names on preschool super-hero Valentines.

Is it a fake holiday? Am I a romantic? Probably “yes” to both. But, I’ve purchased cards and gifts, and I’ll enjoy distributing them. And, I’ll save the ones I receive.

However, the best Valentine I can give to the people I love is to look inward and have a “spiritual EKG”. I need to take a moment and determine if my day to day demonstration of love aligns with God’s definition of love.

In 1 Corinthians 13, God tells us what love should look like:

Love is…

Patient: Love bears with other’s shortcomings, weaknesses, and failures. Love waits for the right moment, it stays calm and perseveres.

Kind: Love is friendly, careful, and meets other’s needs without having to be asked. Love bends over backward to be nice, it is courteous.

Love is not…

Self-seeking: selfishly pursuing what is gratifying to me, or putting my personal desires, focus and needs above others.

Easily angered: becoming intensely displeasured or exasperated without much difficulty; it doesn’t have a short fuse and lean toward a lit match.

Proud: haughty or arrogant, with an exaggerated self-esteem or feeling of superiority.

Love does not…

Envy: discontent with what I have, resenting what another has, wanting what I don’t have.

Boast: focus on my achievements or possessions, lift myself up even at the expense of putting someone else down.

Dishonor others: bring shame or disgrace upon others through disrespect, slander, or maligning their reputation.

Delight in evil: enjoy my own wickedness or find great pleasure when others fall victim to wickedness.

Keep a record of wrongs: maintain a list of unjust treatment, collected and preserved, so as not to be forgotten, refuse to forgive, and continue to recall mistakes, errors, hurts, inequalities and injustices.

Love always…

Rejoices with the truth: Love fills the heart with joy, and is ready to celebrate facts, reality, sincerity, fidelity, integrity and honesty. Love celebrates what is right.

Protects: Love guards or keeps from harm. Love never deliberately hurts another but shields them from hurt.

Trusts: Love believes, has faith and confidence in others. Love gives the benefit of the doubt.

Hopes: Love is not wishful thinking, but confidence. Loves look forward with confidence to the fulfillment of God’s Word.

Perseveres: Love persists, it never gives up, ever.

Love never fails: no way, not at all, not ever, on no occasion will love prove deficient or inadequate. Love will always succeed.

God tells us in 1 John 4:16 that He is love. Because God is love, He can define love, and He can command that we love one another in the way that He defines it. Sometimes I love well. Other times, I don’t. God always does.

Is your heart prepared for Valentine’s Day? Are you? Are those you love? Will you be showering those you love with true Godly love this Valentine’s Day?

Living In the Present Tense

01/31/2014contentment, Death Grief and Mourning, Gospel, Sharing the Gospel, , , , , , , , 21 Comments

dadnboys1_30_2014a 

Dad would’ve loved this record-breaking winter. Not that he enjoyed the cold and snow, but he was always up for a challenge.

He would have gone out every day just to prove he could. Level 3 snow emergency – ha! That wouldn’t keep him parked. -40° wind chill – ha! That just meant putting on the lined jacket.

Then he’d call to tell me about the brutal cold, the deep snow, how many cars he’d seen in the ditch, how much he slid around, and how well he handled the icy slick roads. And if he fell on the ice, he’d tell me about that, too.

That was the “old normal”… knowing dad would be pushing the limit, and waiting for the phone to ring in the evening so he could tell all about it.

The “new normal” is talking about dad in the past tense. The “new normal” is not getting a call from him. The “new normal” is realizing the finality of death.

That may be our new normal, but it surely isn’t dad’s!

What is dad’s “new normal”? Can it even be called “normal”? Is there anything “normal” about being in the visible presence of Jesus every moment? Of continual praise? Of ceaseless joy? Of pure love? Of a sinless existence? Can we begin to imagine? I don’t think so…

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” – 1 Corinthians 2:9

What do we know about heaven? We know it’s real. We know that Jesus is there. We know that those who trust in Him will be with Him in heaven when they leave their physical bodies.

“…as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” – 2 Corinthians 5:8 NIV

“I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” – Philippians 1:23 NIV

We know that we will recognize each other. We know we don’t become angels. We know we remain ourselves.

Can we be sure that we will go to heaven? Yes! The glorious truth is that when we trust our salvation entirely to Jesus and the work He accomplished on the cross, our eternity is secure.

Trusting Jesus means we recognize that it is not about how good we are, but about how bad we are. We must admit that there is nothing good in us. Nothing. Not 80%, not 50%, not 10%, but 0%. We ask Jesus to save us from the sin that enslaves us 100%. We ask Him to enter into our person and live His life through us. We surrender to Him, and then we are saved. From that moment on, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. It is God who saves us, secures our salvation, and brings us to heaven.

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy…” – Jude 24, NIV

Dad would’ve loved this winter… but I’m sure it can’t touch how much he loves the Springtime of eternity!

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Polar Vortex? It’s My Fault!

01/28/2014Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Walk, , , , , , , 16 Comments

The temperature is -3 on its way to -18 and I have to apologize to everyone because the cold is my fault.

You see, I’ve been putting off organizing the cabinet under my bathroom sink for months. It’s easy to pretend the mess isn’t there when it’s hidden. And, it’s so easy to hide: just close the door and it’s gone! Outa sight. Outa mind. Life is good.

Until the temps hover below zero for days on end, and the cabinet doors have to stay open so the pipes on the exterior walls don’t freeze.

MarciaSink1a

UGH! There it is, staring at me, daring me to dig deep. What will I uncover? Garish lipsticks, old eye shadow, and duplicate purchases because I forgot what was in there. Bottles of nail polish used just once. Waste and disorder.

It shouldn’t surprise me that God is going to this length to get me to clean, purge and organize the impulse purchases and hidden mistakes in my cabinet. He goes to even greater lengths to get me to look deep into my heart and purge the mistakes (sins) that are hidden there.

He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. – 1 Corinthians 4:5 NIV

God does this. He reveals hidden sin so that I might confess, purge, repent and be cleansed. God causes me to look at the hidden sin in my heart because sin is a barrier that separates me from intimacy with God and God wants a relationship that is free of barriers.

God knows the deepest darkest caverns of your heart and mine. He knows the impulse purchases we try to forget. He knows the garish mistakes. He knows the reality of what is hidden there.

For the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought – 1 Chronicles 28:9 NIV

We may try to hide our sins, but nothing is hidden from God. God won’t let us hide. He loves us and wants us cleansed.

O God, you know how foolish I am; my sins cannot be hidden from you. – Psalm 69:5

We may try to close the door and pretend the mess isn’t there, but God won’t let the door stay closed. He allows circumstances or events in our lives that force us to open the door and confront the reality of sin.

When we acknowledge the mess, confess, and repent, God’s cleansing light of forgiveness floods every deep corner of our hearts.

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.  – 1 John 1:9 NLT

God cornered me. He does frequently, and when He does, I cleanse, purge and organize. My heart is good and my cabinet is too. You can expect the temps to start rising any moment!

MarciaSink2a

Walking Back Home

01/14/2014Spiritual Walk, , , , , 9 Comments

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Walking is my exercise of choice. I can walk alone, but I prefer to walk with a friend. I walk at the mall in winter, and I walk outside in summer.

Fortunately, there is a great subdivision across the street from my house with miles of walking paths that meander around a lake, pond, community garden, horse stable, school, park and beautiful homes. But, because I don’t have a map of the paths, and because there are so many of them, by the time my heart is in a good place (both physically and spiritually), I’m usually lost.

But, that’s OK; I know I won’t be lost for long, because wherever I am on those paths, I can see this water tower which is right across from my house. I know that if I can find my way to the tower, I can find my way home. As soon as I spot the tower, I know which way to walk to get home and find rest.

The other day I was chatting with a friend who had lost her way home spiritually. She started out walking with God, but then made a few turns here and there without paying much attention and then before she knew it, she had wandered away. It had been over a year since she’d gone to church, and she was homesick, alone, lonely, afraid of what the future might hold, and even more, of what it might not hold.

She needed a water tower! No, she needed a friend to point her to God because God is always there pointing the way home!

“This is what the Lord says, ‘Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.’”– Jeremiah 6:16 NLT

Sometimes the old, godly way is simply returning to church. But, it’s hard to walk in alone, so my friend phoned a friend who lived near her and they went to church together last Sunday. Afterward, she told me, “I feel a lot more at ease today… like I have more direction… like comfort with the unknown.” She had returned home and found rest.

Going to church won’t make anyone a Christian, but Christians need to go to church. We need to worship with other believers. We need the spiritual communion and encouragement that comes from singing praises alongside others, and hearing God’s Word preached in community with others. This is not new.

“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”  – Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT

Is there an area of your life where you’ve taking baby steps away from the Lord? Away from rest? Look up! The Lord is waiting to show you the way back home.

Is there a friend whom you might lovingly invite to go to church with you?

Loving and Leaving

01/07/2014Spiritual Walk, , , , 23 Comments

rachel and ralph 2

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.” – Genesis 12:1 – NLT

When Abram/Abraham was 75 years old, God called him to leave all that was familiar and go. God didn’t give him directions; He basically said, “Follow me, I’ll show you where to go, and I’ll let you know when you get there.” Trust me, and walk with me.

Because Abraham loved and trusted God, he left the familiar, his family, his home, his job, everything! He left because God was more important than anything.

This is my Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ralph. On December 23, 1965, they left their families of origin and promised to walk with God through good times or bad, sickness or health, riches or poverty until death parted them. They walked with God as they started their own family and weathered the storms of life. They are continuing to walk with God as everything familiar fades into the rear view mirror and they become strangers.

You see, Uncle Ralph has Alzheimer’s, and Aunt Rachel is losing him a little bit each day. The familiar is gone. The unknown lies ahead.

No one said that following God would be easy, but no one expected the path to lead through Alzheimer’s. Because Aunt Rachel loves Uncle Ralph, and God, she walks where God leads.

People say, “God won’t give you more than you can handle!” Unfortunately, that isn’t true. God won’t allow temptations to overwhelm us, but he does allow difficulties that do.

The truth is that God does allow more heartache and hardship than we can bear. If he didn’t, we wouldn’t need to trust Him and we would assume that we could take care of everything the evil one throws at us. We would spend our days trudging through life trying to endure in our own strength.

Even the Apostle Paul was overwhelmed by difficulty…

“We do not want you to be uninformed …about the troubles we experienced… We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death.”

But, Paul doesn’t stop there…

“But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead.” – 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 NLT

It is not easy to follow God. It wasn’t easy for Abraham – his failures are recorded in the Bible! It’s not easy for Aunt Rachel. And it won’t be easy for you.

However, if God is calling you away from the familiar, you can be sure He is with you. He is all-powerful and he wants you to rely on Him. He will never leave you nor forsake you. And, you can rest assured that nothing is too difficult for God!

What is God calling you to leave behind as you begin a new year? What is He calling you toward? Do you love and trust him enough to follow Him wherever he leads, even if the path leads away from the familiar and into the unknown?