Love #3

I will start this post with a story. Jesus is teaching:

"A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?"

Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt." And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly."

Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven--for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little."

The lesson God has been teaching me this last couple of weeks is one that I think is also apparent in this passage. It is one that I have been learning BIG TIME. It is this:

Love comes first out of a yearning for it.

Jesus says in this story that obviously the one who loves the moneylender more is the one who has been given the most by him, which was the one who had the bigger debt. He was given the bigger gift because he had been freed of the bigger debt.

Then, as Jesus refers to the woman who had kissed his feet, He says that she loves much because she had been forgiven of many sins. Then he says "But he who is forgiven little, loves little."

Basically, I can some this story up in one sentence: The more that we recognize our need for God, the more we will grow to love Him.

And I have definitely been learning this.

The more that I realize my NEED for God in my life, the more that I can actively love Him and others around me.

Love #2

Upon striving to strengthen my love for God on a daily basis I have come to this important lesson:

Lesson #4: Love is contagious.

That seems like a simple concept, but in fact my meaning behind this lesson is a little more complicated.

There are many people in ministry that are hard to love. Some at specific times, and some all the time. We all have our days. But I've learned that when I am focused on loving God, my love for others comes naturally.

It is easier to love the difficult people on the days that my love for God is overflowing.

We know that in Matthew 22 God tells us the greatest commandment, which is to "love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul, and with all [our] mind" [verse 37]. But we also see in verse 39 the second most important commandment being to "love [our] neighbor as [our]self."

I think commandment #2 comes out of commandment #1.. that's why they are listed in this specific order.

So if I am striving to love God with everything that I have and striving to make that known by the way I live my life, then the more I do that, the more I will be overflowing my love onto to others and seeking to love them in the same way. Then as I am loving others, my actions will be noticed by those around me, and they will follow.

I've seen this dynamic concept of love in action, and it has continued to be my motivation to continue in this path.

Whenever we, as Christians, are struggling to love someone in our path, we must simply remember the love that God has for us, and be reminded of how much we love him in return. This should cause us to re-focus ourselves on how to love those tough people that we may come across.

And boy is this kind of love needed in ministry.

Besides just loving those that are hard to love sometimes, I feel so convicted [guilty] lately about not properly or actively loving those around me.

The Bible teaches love to be an action, not a feeling or simply an entity. Rather, love is, like i defined in my last post, a daily choice.

I want to show Christ's love in every detail of my life, and I am not doing a very good job of it. I put myself before others in a lot of aspects. I want to pray for people in my life more than I often do. I want to send thank you letters and birthday cards to people that I care about. I want to actively pursue how I can pray for strangers that I interact with when I am in public, like waiters, pizza delivery guys, check-out counter people, and drive-through employees. How can I do that? How can I leave the fingerprints of God on the lives of those around me in a more practical way?

This is something that has become a daily struggle for me. I battle with the feelings of reluctance to get past myself and my daily list of things to-do and to actually take action in the lives of those around me.

The result is not instant, but actively loving others will eventually cause a Domino effect.

Love is contagious, so why not get up and move in the lives of those around you?

Love

I've realized that loving God is a daily battle, or more like a daily decision that I have to make.

Lesson #3: My love for God should be evident in everything that I do.

Deuteronomy 6:5 says: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." - but not only that...

"And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart." - Deut 6:6

"You shall teach them diligently to your children.."

"..and shall talk of them when you sit in your house.."

"..and when you walk by the way.."

"..and when you lie down.."

"..and when you rise." [Deut 6:7]

"You shall bind them as a sign on your hand.."

"..and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes." [Deut 6:8]

"You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." [Deut 6:9]

So I not only need to love God with everything I am, I also need to keep this command on my heart always.

I need to teach this to the youth within my ministry, and talk about this love in my house. I need to remember my love for Christ everywhere I go, remember it when I am going to sleep and when I am waking up.

I need to remember my love for God in everything that I do with my hands, and everything I see with my eyes.

I need for people to know of my love for God when they come into my house as well as into my room.

My love for God should be evident in everything I do.

Community

i surprised my mom for mother's day last Sunday. this is what i did:

first of all, i wrote her a card telling her one of the things she has taught me. she has taught me so much about how to be accepting of every kind of person. i also made her a picture frame and put a photo inside that was taken last summer of us and my father. on the way home i stopped and got her a bouquet of lillies as well.

when i got home to Charlottesville, i put the flowers, card, and bag on the front stoop and knocked on the door very loudly. i ran to the back door quickly and waited for my mom in the kitchen. after she came back that way from answering the door, i could see that she had her present in her hand and so i yelled, "happy mother's day! i love you!"

we then spent most of the day together just sitting around watching TV and talking about life. afterwards we went out for a family dinner. i really miss these moments with my mom.

recently i have been realizing my next lesson: Community with others is important.

when i first moved up here to Reston, i was ready to be on my own. i was excited to start over, make new friends, build new relationships within my ministry, and thrive in change.

i always embrace change [for the most part]. i tend to like to change things up often. change is good, in my mind.

so that's where i was. i couldn't wait to get my own place and live on my own for a while.

but since then, and through my mother's day experience with my mom, i've realized that community is key. not finding friends my own age, or getting involved in a small group of ladies, or having Tommy around all the time. what is key in my life [what has been and will continue to be] is that i have community with believers.

it doesn't matter how many close friends i have or how many small groups i am involved in, how much time i get to see my mom, or how many kids i interact with every week. what matters is that i have community with believers, where i worship with them, rejoice with them, and suffer with them. having this kind of community with other believers is what has made my move so easy and so exciting.

Colossians 3:16 says to "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in al wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God."

yes, we need to be in the Word, reading it and letting the Words we read effect our actions, but through this we should be led to community with one another.

we interact with God personally so that we can teach one another. we interact with God personally so that we can admonish one another. we interact with God personally so that we can worship in song with one another. we interact with God personally so that we can give thanks to Him.

seems to me that the major point in all this is this: we interact with God personally so that we can have community with one another.

so in conclusion, don't think you can do this on your own. we need God, first and foremost in our lives, but we also need each other. this is how God thrives among us!

A Manner that is Worthy.

Lately I've been taking notice of my responsibility to God and feeling it weigh on my shoulders a little bit more. I've been realizing the great and mighty calling that He has for me as a child of God. I've been compelled by His Word to step my life up a notch when it comes to pleasing Him and representing Him well.

Philippians 1:27 has been on my heart this week:
"Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ."
Wow. That is a crazy powerful statement to me.

It doesn't just say "live Holy because God is Holy" or "take after Christ's example in the way you live your life" both of which are what we are taught to do elsewhere in the Bible. Rather, this verse says "Let the way that you live your life be worthy of what Christ has done for you."

Basically, "Live in a way that is worthy of Christ's death."

Is there anything I can do that is worthy of Christ's death?

I mean seriously, there is no possible way that I could even remotely live in a way that deserves any form of His grace.

And this is the realization that I have been coming to almost every day of my life these days.

It seems like a harsh reality to be in. And it is, but it's also comforting. And it also challenges me.

So every day I wake up and ask myself what I can do today to act worthy of His grace. And maybe all it is, is to pour into the lives of those around me. And maybe He wants me to spend extra time in prayer. And maybe He wants me to call my parents, or an old friend, or write a letter to someone I haven't seen in a while. And these are all things that I am willing to do for Him, and examples of what I have been doing.

But what has changed, is that I'm opening up to Him more through this realization. I'm constantly asking Him what I can do and constantly looking for opportunities to act in a manner that is worthy of Him. And He never fails to open up doors and teach me more than I could have learned before.

This life is a privilege. I'm tired of living it within the realm of my own selfishness.

So ask yourself this: How can you live in a way that is worthy of the Gospel?

Lessons in life & love..

As you can see, I've given my blog a face-lift of sorts: New name, new background, new theme. I've decided to devote my blog to a "life lessons" type of template and list lessons in each entry. I think this will be more helpful in the future when i want to look back on these first years in ministry: all that i learned and went through during this time. i was inspired by some events this week that have plagued my mind and have caused me to begin a list of these "lessons in life & love".. so here goes:

Lesson #1: Ministry is hard.

~ this may seem like a harsh statement to make, but to all you people out there who think my job in youth ministry is all just a bunch of fun and games, i urge you to think again. yes, ministry is fun. yes, ministry is rewarding. but ministry is more than just a job. i do more than just hang out with teenagers and get on facebook all day, and plan crazy activities. ministry becomes hard the minute you have to betray someone's trust in order to get them the help they need.

its not easy telling someone they can confide in you and then later realizing that they need to talk to a more trained individual who can better counsel them. it's not easy telling your supervisor the prayer requests of some students, knowing that it is something that was hard for them to tell in the first place. nothing in ministry can ever be completely confidential. and it's hard to try and explain that to a girl who just poured their heart out to you. "by the way, everything you just trusted me with.. i have to tell someone else because they can better assist you. thanks!"

yeah not an easy task.

but ministry is all about loving and intentionally pursuing others. as long as you are doing that, they will come around.

and i know my girls will come around. i will never turn my back on someone because they turn their back on me. Christ doesn't do that, so i will take after Him and show his love in this way.

Pleasing Aroma

I'm currently reading through Numbers [STILL! but I'm finally almost through it!] and I'm going to admit that sometimes it's hard to pull things from it. It can be pretty boring at times, but my ultimate goal when reading the Bible, is to read something over and over until I can pull some sort of application from it. [This is why it has taken me so long to get this far in it.] But something super simple in chapters 28 & 29 has caught my attention this week.

God wants His children to be a "pleasing aroma" before Him.

I will explain this.

In Numbers 28, God tells the Israelites about sacrifices and offerings. He mentions six times in this chapter to do these things in order to be a "pleasing aroma" to the Lord. IN chapter 29, this subject is mentioned five times. I mean, if something is mentioned eleven times it must be pretty important, right?

Since Jesus was sacrificed on the cross for our sins, we no longer need to make burnt offerings to the Lord in the temple as our sacrifices to Him. Jesus took our place. Because of this fact alone, we can have a relationship with the Father directly and don't have to go through a priest anymore.

We don't have to prepare a burnt offering every time we sin and take it to the temple with the hopes that we did it perfectly and that the priest will accept it and offer it before God on our behalf.

Jesus paved the way for our relationship with the Father in the sense that now we can speak with Him directly. This is what "prayer" is and essentially what it does. We can now ask God for forgiveness directly because we know that He hears us when we call on Him. [Isaiah 65: 24 ~ “It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.”] This is what we call "repentance" which essentially means - asking for forgiveness with the intention of actively turning away from that sin.

This leads us to what we call the New Covenant. The New Covenant is what comes from Jesus changing it all up after his death on the cross. Since we have all these new privileges through his death, we are no longer under the law of the Old Testament. The New Testament teaches us all about this New Covenant. The more you read the New Testament of the Bible, the more you learn what God calls Christians to do as part of this New Covenant. Instead of sacrificing animals to bring God our offering, we bring Him our offering through our lives and the way we live it.

God tells us all about this in the New Testament.

But the cool thing is that the Old Testament can teach us a lot about this as well.

It's like God set it up before the whole "Jesus" thing before it ever even happened.

AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE DID.

The Old Testament paves the way for the New Testament. That's why we can definitely learn from these two chapters in Numbers by paying attention to what has been written these eleven times.

We must offer Him a "pleasing aroma" as we live for Him.

The question then is, what does a "pleasing aroma to the Lord" figuratively smell like? What does it look like for us to live this way?

[[I encourage you to comment on this post with your answers as to what your response is to these questions. I'll post a conclusion to this in a few days.]]