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?
Buffets can be
great places! We can eat a lot or a
little (I’ve never done the latter, but I hear it can happen). We can eat what’s good for us…or…not so much. We can eat fast or slow. Kids can eat frozen pizza and chicken nuggets
while mom and dad eat crab legs. The point is, we can pick what we want. Assuming that the buffet has good food
(that’s the rub, buffets tend to be lesser quality), it can be a happy dining
experience, a win-win for each person, a triumph of individual tastes and free
choice.
Unfortunately we
have a cultural view of love which likes to treat love as a buffet. We like to pick and choose what we think
tastes good to us…and leave behind what doesn’t. That, according to our Higher Love song, 1
Corinthians 13, is not love at all. Look
at verses 6 and 7.
6 Love does not delight in evilbut rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
One way to summarize this powerful passage is
“love does not approach life like a buffet, choosing the parts of “love” which
please ourselves (verse 5 love is not self-seeking), and abandoning the course
when it ceases to taste good.”
Max Lucado writes,
What if
parents could do this with kids? “I’ll
take a plate of good grades and cute smiles, and I’m passing on the teenage
identity crisis and tuition bills.”…and spouse with spouse, “H’m, how about a bowl of good health and
good moods. But job transfers, in-laws,
and laundry are not on my diet.” It
wouldn’t be love…Love is willing to accept all things.[1]
Verse 6-7 provide the answer to “buffet love” – Verse
6 emphasizes that love is not a feeling (what pleases me) but a guide to
rejoice in the truth, what pleases God rather than what pleases me. And note the prominence of the word always in verse 7. It literally reads (in original language) bears all things, believes all things, etc. The idea is that love is not buffet
style. It is more like mom’s
kitchen. You know, “I am not running a
restaurant here, you eat what you’re given you clean your plate.” This “mom’s kitchen” kind of higher love is
the love The Father shows us in His Son Jesus, it is the love that is poured
into us by the Holy Spirit, and is the love described in this greatest of all
love songs, 1 Corinthians 13.
Questions for Reflection
Reflect on the
aspects of higher love from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:
4 Love is patient,love is kind. It does not envy, it does not
boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,it is not easily angered,it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evilbut rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.
Which of these
do you find appealing to your taste, like the items you choose in a
buffet?
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)?
Contributors: Claudia Brydon, Chris Firth, Bob Klecan, Ed
Pierce
Day 4
The Cross and Love
During the
1720’s Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf visited a Dusseldorf art museum, where he was
especially moved by a particular painting of the crucified Jesus. The painter had painted the picture with the
intent of conveying his love for Christ.
Below the picture were the words:
All this I did for thee,
What hast
thou done for Me?
Zinzendorf’s
heart was affected. Christ’s love as
demonstrated in the cross became the constraining power of his life, as 2
Corinthians 5:14 states, “The love of Christ constrains (compels) me.” “I have,” he exclaimed, “but one passion, tis
He and He only.” It was the dying love
of Christ mastering his life that fitted Zinzendorf for the work he had to do.
Zinzendorf
returned home to provide spiritual leadership for about three hundred refugees
from religious persecution, the majority of which were Moravians, spiritual
descendents of the Czech martyr Jon Hus.
The goal of Zinzendorf and the elders was to lead their souls deeper
into the love of Christ, into which they had been baptized.
In August 1727
the community experienced a breakthrough of love and unity during a special
Lord’s Supper celebration. They asked
the Lord to “keep us in the saving power of His grace, and not allow a single
soul to be drawn away to itself and its own merits from that Blood-and-cross
theology, on which our salvation depends.
Following this
experience the Moravian brethren were possessed by a zeal for missions. The Spirit breathed in power on the young and
the old. People’s hearts were filled
with a burning love for the Savior who died for them. They emphasized Isaiah 53:10-12 as their
chief incentive, from which they drew their battle cry, “To win for the Lamb
that was slain the reward of His sufferings.”
They started a 24-hour prayer vigil which lasted 100 years.
During the following 25 years they sent out
more than 100 missionaries. It is worth
noting that this is before the start of the modern missions movement.
Some of these
Moravian missionaries met John Wesley on a boat bound for America. In the presence of their sincere and wholehearted
devotion to Christ Wesley realized that his own religiosity was bankrupt. He was later converted to Christ at a
Moravian chapel in London, and became the founder of Methodism and the Great
Awakening in England.
William Carey,
the “Father of modern missions,” was also greatly influenced by Moravian
missionaries. Carey went on, against the
overwhelming opposition of his church associates, to be the founder of a
missions movement that really continues, in many different waves and
manifestations, to this day. [1]
Think about
this. One artist painted to communicate
his deep love for Jesus. One man’s faith caught fire during this encounter with
thesuffering Savior and
became the spark for a group of three hundred refugees to catch fire with
a “blood and cross” motivation that
impacted the entire world for Christ.
Our desire is that of the Moravian leaders, to lead our souls deeper
into the death of Christ. It is certain that,
if we go there, we will be changed.
Whether we impact people around the world, in our own homes, or in our
communities, we will be people of new impact and power. Author John Stott says that the cross is “the
blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near
enough to it for its sparks to fall on us.[2]
Questions for Reflection
Re-read John Stott’s words
in the last sentence of the devotional.
How will the cross kindle the flame of our love?
The Moravian’s chief incentive was Isaiah 53:10-12. Read and reflect and ask the Lord to motivate
you to a deeper and fuller love and service through the truth of the
cross.
[1]
This story is summarized from several sources, most significantly From Jerusalem
to Irian Jaya by Ruth Tucker and Come
to the Lord’s Table by Claude King.
[2]
From What Christ Thinks of the Church
by John Stott
Day 3
Love
keeps no record of wrong
This verse read in a Greek transliteration
comes out, “does not reckon the evil.”
Investigating further, we find that “keeps record of (logizomai) means
to reckon, impute, or number. It has the
idea of occupying oneself with calculations; putting something to a person’s
account, either in his favor or against him.
The word “wrong” (kakos) carries with it the idea of bad, intrinsically
lacking in value, useless. It is likened
to a torn garment or a doctor who lacks adequate skill. God is love and He empowers us to love as He does. “As far as the east is from the west, so far
has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12)). God enters NO calculations in His book of
records for all the wrongs and evils we have committed. They are infinitely removed by the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. We are told in
Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may
have against one another. Forgive as the
Lord forgave you.” Because of the power
of God’s love in us, we can keep records of all the wrongs done to us at a BIG
FAT ZERO. Above all, love each other
deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8)
How do you let go of wrongs
done to you? Do not repeatedly bring up
to your mind offenses committed against you.
Dismiss them! Amy Carmichael made
a conscious choice to forget, stating, “I distinctly remember forgetting
that.” Hurts and consequences of the
wrongs may linger, but you can cease and desist from parading them through your
mind, chewing on and mulling them over and over again.
A recent example of this comes
through our son. Last fall his
motorcycle was t-boned by a pick-up and truck.
His left ankle was shattered and dislocated. He underwent excruciating pain in the
resetting of his ankle, and putting all the bones back in place was
problematic. For months our son lived
with the uncertainty of whether his foot would ever heal and that it might even
have to be amputated. Sometimes he
struggled with anger toward the driver of the pick-up truck. After all, that man got off almost
scot-free. His truck suffered very
little damage and his insurance company paid out all the money to settle with
our son. In the meantime, our son’s life
was extremely disrupted by pain, worry, multiple doctor visits, mobility
issues, etc. He felt justified in his
anger toward that truck driver and sometimes entertained thoughts of finding
where the man lived so he could break that driver’s ankle. Our son was tormented by these feelings and
thoughts for weeks. But he also could
not get away from these verses, Do not be anxious about anything, but in
everything by prayer and petition, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all
understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6-7). Those verses dwelt in his mind and heart for
over a week. Then God’s peace flooded
him as he was reminded to be thankful: thankful that he did not die, thankful
he was not paralyzed, thankful he was not injured more severely, thankful for
his three little boys and his wife. He
continued to focus on all the blessings of God through this very long, trying
ordeal and as a result, thoughts of anger and revenge were shoved out of his
mind and heart.
Jesus’ parable of the king and
the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35 is our prime example and gives no
excuse for keeping records of wrongs.
One servant owed the king several million dollars. The servant pleaded for mercy and the king
cancelled his debt. Then this same
servant met up with a fellow servant who owed him a small amount of money
and likewise pleaded for mercy. But the first servant refused and had the
other servant thrown into prison. How
dare he! How dare we! God is the king and has cancelled our debt
that was bazillions of dollars! How can
we keep accounts of the wrong done to us, for they are mere pittances by
comparison. Love indeed keeps no record
of wrongs. Hallelujah!
Questions for Reflection
Let’s take the time to read and reflect
upon Matthew 18:21-35.
How do you
respond to this? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Prayer: Reflecting specifically on this
devotional, write out a prayer to God.
