John
Piper writes the following on how dying to self is the key to truly loving
(love is not self-seeking).
§Being long-suffering means dying to the desire for an untroubled
life.
§Having no jealousy means dying to the desire for unshared
affection.
§Not boasting means dying to the desire to call attention to our
successes.
§Not acting unbecomingly means dying to the desire to express our
freedom offensively.
§Not seeking our own way means dying to the dominance of our own
preferences.
§Not being easily provoked means dying to the need for no
frustrations.
§Not taking account of wrongs means dying to the desire for
revenge.
§Bearing all things and enduring all things means dying to the
desire to run away from the pain of obedience.
Love at home, love at the office, love in the neighborhood, love
in the body of believers? Are we willing to die? If we are this satisfied with
all that God is for us in Christ, then the promises will surely come true: we
will bear much fruit, we will live forever, we will be with the Lord, and the
Father will honor us.
When Jesus calls a man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, he bids him
come and die. Come. Reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to love.
How does this
impact your grasp of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7)?
1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to his great mercy he has given us new birth
into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Psalm 42:5 Why are you down cast, O
my soul? Why so disturbed within
me? Put your hope in God, for I will
yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
Hebrews 6:19-20 We have this hope as
an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain where our forerunner,
Jesus has entered on our behalf…
Hope
is essential and fundamental to Christian life.
Our source of hope is our Savior Jesus Christ. We place our hope in God who is absolutely
trustworthy. His Words will not
fail. We can stand on His promises. Hope is described as “living”, not frail or
perishable. It serves as an “anchor,
firm and secure”. Hope is a belief and
confidence that positive outcomes will be attained. It focuses on strengths and resilience. Hope
is a catalyst for change and healing.
Love always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, and always perseveres. “Always “
encompasses all things. We can
all hope for some things. But God calls
us farther and deeper into love for Him, for one another, and for the
lost. It is impossible to have this love
apart from God’s help.
Cynicism
is an attitude characterized by a general distrust of others. Life experiences, media, and education
contribute to the unrealistic negativity.
To believe the best about people and give them the benefit of the doubt
is considered naïve and gullible. Love
is willing to take a risk with others.
Love believes that good is possible for anyone.
Hope
thrives in a Christian’s personal relationship with God. Faith, hope, and love are intertwined. Faith grows as we meditate upon God’s
Word. Prayer is powerful. We are blessed to have a wealth of Christian
books at our fingertips. Fellowship on a
regular basis with Christian friends brings encouragement, love, and spiritual
growth. Would you like to be better
equipped for evangelism? Each of us has
the opportunity to attend the Christian Life and Witness Course from Rock the
Lakes for exceptional training to present hope to the lost. (A series of three classes will be held May
3rd, 10th, and 17th from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm at the CMA of North
East; other dates and locations are available.) Let hope rise in your heart.
If you are reading this after these
classes have started, you can come to the remaining sessions even if you have
missed the first one. And if you wish to
make up the first one, a make-up opportunity will be provided. Look at www.rockthelakes.org
for times and locations.
Questions for Reflection
Write
out your vision of hope. For example,
think of a relationship or circumstance that has been darkened by
cynicism. What would it look like if
hope replaced cynicism?
Look at Psalm
42:5, the second Scripture quoted in
this devotional. It is this verse which
prompted the late Martin Lloyd-Jones to write,
Have
you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you
are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was
this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to
himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been
depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says,: “Self, listen for
moment, I will speak to you.” (Spiritual Depression, 20-21)
John Piper then concludes:
On this side of the cross,
we know the greatest ground for our hope: Jesus Christ crucified for our sins
and triumphant over death. So the main thing we must learn is to preach the
gospel to ourselves:
Listen,
self: If God is for you, who can be against you? He who did not spare his own
Son but gave him up for you, how will he not also with him graciously give you
all things? Who shall bring any charge against you as God’s elect? It is God
who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than
that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding
for you. Who shall separate you from the love of Christ? (Romans 8:31–35paraphrased)
Learn to preach the gospel
to yourself. If this psalmist were living after Christ, that is what he would
have done.
So…this is our
practice for today. When your soul is
preaching against hope to you, do not just listen…preach the gospel back to
yourself! And the gospel fills us with
hope and love like that found in the greatest love song, 1 Corinthians 13!
“Love
never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every
circumstance.”
I
Corinthians 13:7
When troubles and fiery
trials come our way, Peter and James tell us to be truly glad – that it is an
opportunity for great and wonderful joy! (1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-4, 1 Peter
4:12-13) Why? That sounds foolish to
most of us. But when our faith is tested,
our endurance has a chance to grow and when our endurance is fully developed,
we will be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing!
Our faith and hope support
our love by enabling us to endure through every difficult circumstance. Oswald Chambers writes,
“Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute
certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on,
which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling….Then there is
the call to spiritual perseverance. A
call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with
certainty that God will never be defeated….”
How do we continue to show
kindness to those who are unlovable or continue to pray for a loved one for
months or years when we see no change?
We don’t try harder. We pray for
the power of the Holy Spirit to increase our faith, to put His hope in us, and
to overflow with His love. We are
incapable on our own to love the unlovable for an extended period of time, but
filled with the Holy Spirit we are capable of the genuine love of Christ in any
and every circumstance. We can do all
things through Him who gives us strength!
Because we have faith
that God knows, plans and directs our lives for the good, that He who suffered
and died for us will not abandon us, but carry us through, that God does indeed
answer prayer, that our future is secure with Him, that He fulfills all His
promises and that He loves us to the uttermost.
And because we put our hope in this living, all-powerful,
unchanging, loving God, then we are able to not only endure but persevere – loving
and working “deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be
defeated”.
Questions for Reflection
Can you think of some
circumstances where your love was tested and greatly strengthened by
difficulty?
Why is perseverance
such an important element of love? The
word is used only here, but in the term patience (v. 3) and the extended
teaching regarding the permanence of love (vs. 8-13) we see that the fact that
love endures and lasts and sticks-to-it is one of the distinguishing marks of
higher love. Why?
Love always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. (1 Corinthians.13:7)
When you hear this verse,
what does it make you think of? Could it
be you thought of your husband and children?
Who loves us more than our family?
God does! Where do we learn to
love the way God does? God shows us His
Love in His word, in our prayers, in our conversations with fellow Christians,
in our churches, in our circumstances, and sometimes as we just listen and
practice love.
If one of your children
does something that you do not approve of, do you ignore it, talk about it or
forgive it? Is there room for
discipline? Yes, of course. If we love as God does, we will discipline as
God would, with love and faith that we are doing the right thing. We want to be loving and forgiving; we can
with the help of the Holy Spirit. It is
good to keep good relationships with our children; we never know what tomorrow
will bring. We have to persevere through
trials in this life and trust that God will use us to help our children grow in
their love for Him.
If a friend disappoints us,
should we never talk to them again? No,
we go and talk about the problem with them and love them enough to forgive
them. Is this easy, no, but it has been
said, “love covers a multitude of sin”.
So true, if we are truly one of God’s children, with the help of the
Holy Spirit we can forgive. Without Him,
it is very difficult to do.
God has promised to never leave us or
forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5b)
We could name many
incidents in our life of betrayal but in all of the circumstances we must
always remember, God loves us and is in all of our lives all of the
time. His love is greater than we can
imagine and He will see us through anything.
We must love God and
practice loving others so that one day when we stand before the Lord He will
say, “well done thou good and faithful servant”.
Dear God,
Help us to put you first in
all things, to love others as you have loved us, Show us how to live our lives
for you and fulfill the destiny you have chosen for us.
Amen
Questions for Reflection
The devotional reads: “God
shows us His love in His Word, in our prayers, in our conversations with fellow
Christians, in our churches, in our circumstances, and sometimes as we just
listen and practice love.”
Can you think of examples
where you have learned of God’s love through each of these?
Presently, who do you need
to talk with about something that they have done to hurt you and challenge your
love? Whose sin does your love need to
cover?
Read and reflect on
Ephesians 5:1-2 as a help in the circumstances where your love needs to rise to
the occasion and hang in there with someone you find difficult:
1 Follow God’s example,therefore, as dearly loved children2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved
usand gave himself up for usas a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
How does this help your
perspective? Your courage?
