The Spirit of Love

A little boy was selling newspapers on the corner; the people were in and out of the cold. The little boy was so cold that he wasn't trying to sell many papers. He walked up to a policeman and said, “Mister, you wouldn't happen to know where a poor boy could find a warm place to sleep tonight would you? You see, I sleep in a box up around the corner there and down the alley, and it's awful cold in there for tonight. Sure would be nice to have a warm place to stay.”

The policeman looked down at the little boy and said, “You go down the street to that big white house and you knock on the door. When they come out the door you just say “John 3:16” and they will let you in.”

So he did. He walked up the steps and knocked on the door, and a lady answered. He looked up and said, “John 3:16.” The lady said, “Come on in, Son.” She took him in and she sat him down in a split bottom rocker in front of a great big old fireplace, and she went off. The boy sat there for a while and thought to himself: John 3:16... I don't understand it, but it sure makes a cold boy warm.

Later she came back and asked him “Are you hungry?” He said, “Well, just a little. I haven't eaten in a couple of days, and I guess I could stand a little bit of food.” The lady took him in the kitchen and sat him down to a table full of wonderful food. He ate and ate until he couldn't eat any more. Then he thought to himself: John 3:16... Boy, I sure don't understand it but it sure makes a hungry boy full.

She took him upstairs to a bathroom to a huge bathtub filled with warm water, and he sat there and soaked for a while. As he soaked, he thought to himself: John 3:16... I sure don't understand it, but it sure makes a dirty boy clean. You know, I've not had a bath, a real bath, in my whole life. The only bath I ever had was when I stood in front of that big old fire hydrant as they flushed it out. The lady came in and got him. She took him to a room, tucked him into a big old feather bed, pulled the covers up around his neck, kissed him goodnight and turned out the lights. As he lay in the darkness and looked out the window at the snow coming down on that cold night, he thought to himself: John 3:16… I don't understand it but it sure makes a tired boy rested.

The next morning the lady came back up and took him down again to that same big table full of food. After he ate, she took him back to that same big old split bottom rocker in front of the fireplace and picked up a big old Bible. She sat down in front of him and looked into his young face. “Do you understand John 3:16?” she asked gently. He replied, “No, Ma'am, I don't. The first time I ever heard it was last night when the policeman told me to use it.” She opened the Bible to John 3:16 and began to explain to him about Jesus. Right there, in front of that big old fireplace, he gave his heart and life to Jesus. He sat there and thought: John 3:16... I don’t understand it, but it sure makes a lost boy feel safe.

You know, I have to confess I don't understand it either, how God was willing to send His Son to die for me, and how Jesus would agree to do such a thing. I don't understand the agony of the Father and every angel in heaven as they watched Jesus suffer and die. I don't understand the intense love for ME that kept Jesus on the cross till the end. I don't understand it, but it sure does make life worth living.

John 3:16…

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

The Parable of the Seed

This week, I was talking to a friend who was feeling pretty overwhelmed and depressed. Family problems, work pressures, and the seemingly endless downward spiral of the financial crisis had him wondering aloud why any of us should even keep trying.

“What’s the use,” he groused, “our lives really don’t amount to much, anyway.”

“Ever see a seed?” I asked him. Of course he had, and just that quickly, I shared with him what I call the Parable of the Seed.

You see, it’s just a seed to you, but to God it is the fulfillment of His plan… about to happen. Just a seed, like many others, and conditions may not be right for it to germinate for years. As a matter of fact, it might be blown about by the wind, washed about by rain, pushed down into the muck, and even buried under ground.

Buried… well, that would seem to be the end of it; but no, for God has placed into the tiny seed all the details of His plan for that fragile little seed. Though far underground, the seed begins an astonishing process: it begins to grow! In the darkness of the earth, against all the pressure and weight above it, the germinating seed begins to push upward, all the while reaching down further into the earth in search of nutrients. Pushing up and straining down, the seed eventually breaks through into the light.

Now, guided upward by the light, it grows at an astonishing pace, and must reach deeper and deeper for nutrients. The very struggle to grow and survive is what drives the roots deep enough to provide strength and security. With its roots as an anchor it can survive the storms that are part of the world. The seed doesn’t know it’s a tree, but it forms a trunk, and branches, and leaves… all the while setting down firmer and deeper roots. It continues to stretch, and spread, and grow. It weathers storms and drought, and it provides safety, shelter, and a home for many others.

Eventually, the tree produces fruit; a delight to others, but never tasted by the tree itself. In producing fruit, the tree also begins to send out seeds. Each fruit contains seeds to produce many trees; each seed containing the perfect plan to go from seed to tree, to fruit, to seed.

Certainly, we are not trees. God has an even more awesome plan for each of us than He has for a tree. When it feels like you are buried, when the world is crushing you, when everything seems dark… are you trying to grow? Are you setting down roots? Are you striving to grow toward the LIGHT… toward the Light of the World… toward God? Are you growing where and when you can? Are you stretching? Are you welcoming to others? Can others find shelter, rest, and a home within your sphere of influence? Are you producing fruit? Are you sharing your fruit freely, or trying to hoard what you will never taste? Are you sending out seed?!? Are our churches as faithful as a tree? I wonder.

The good news is: All of us CAN be even MORE faithful than a tree! We don’t need to be overwhelmed or depressed. For the tree, God’s plan is built right into each seed; a maple seed will always produce a maple tree. It’s exciting to know that God has a plan for each one of us, too.

“God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
- Hebrews 11:40

Though God has a plan for each of us, we are given the free will to seek God’s plan for our life, or ignore it. We begin to germinate in God’s plan when we acknowledge Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We grow in God’s plan when we lay down roots in fellowship, worship, study, and prayer. We begin to produce fruit and seed in God’s plan when we welcome, and give, and share, and teach, and live God’s word. Take a step on faith and you will stop being overwhelmed and depressed… you’ll be too busy growing up in God’s plan.

“Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches."”
- Luke 13:18-19

How deep are your roots? How wide are your branches? Ask your church these questions, and see what germinates.

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Theology 101

Watch the video, and then contemplate the words Jesus spoke:

“At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”
- Matthew 11:25

Boy, do we adults ever make things difficult! We have to study and catalog. We need to cross-reference, count, and correlate. We get wrapped up in confirming each and every miracle, confirming just how many people the 5,000 actually were, and confirming that all the prophesies were fulfilled by Jesus. There is nothing wrong in doing any of those things… as long as it deepens our relationship with our Lord and Savior. If it keeps us focused on satisfying our “learned” explanation of Jesus (and God), then it is paralysis by analysis, and that is just an empty promise… not the abundant, Spirit filled life that a real relationship with Jesus brings.

Here are the lyrics of the song that most every little child in Sunday school knows:

Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

We are ALL weak… except when we belong to Jesus. In Him we are healed; in Him we are strong! And we know this how? Why because the Bible (God’s Word) tells us so. Jesus explained in very simple terms how to come to God:

“He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
- Matthew 18:2-4

My prayer for myself is that I always remember to humble myself like a child… so I can belong to Jesus, and not be so adult and learned that the glory of God is hidden from me. Children get it! Children don’t need a word like “theology”… let alone even know what it means. Children have not yet had the world convince them that they are equal to, if not greater than, God.

So… play the video again. Can you sing along? The words aren’t hard. Can you sing with joy and absolute certainty… like a child? I hope someday to run into the Father’s arms, and have Him lift me up and swing me around while He beams with joy and says: “Well done my child! It’s good to have you home!” The awesome news is that God wants to greet every one of us like that. Come celebrate the fact that Jesus loves us at worship.

Your brother in Christ,

Dave

Bailout

This week the big news has been all about the bailout of the financial markets. It looks like every sector is in trouble. The sub-prime mortgage industry had a major meltdown, along with home equity growth, banks, insurance companies, and major financial institutions. Job losses are at an all-time high, industry is having a hard time securing the capital it needs to operate, gas prices are sky-high, and food prices are inching upward at alarming rates. Certainly, greed has fueled much of the problem, although there are already indications that corruption and fraud might have been much more widespread than anyone initially dreamed (the FBI has made 400 arrests); the Foreclosure Rescue Scammers are particularly odious. By the way… have you checked on your 401K recently? Many 401K investments are wrapped up in mortgage backed securities packages. Now, all those packages are good for is to bleed 401K investments to zero. I could go on and on, but you get the idea… the damage caused by this catastrophe (of our own making, BTW) continues to mount: homes in foreclosure, jobs being lost, and companies and lives in ruin.

Most of us, having made a bad financial decision, have to be accountable for our actions. We take the loss, or perhaps make restitution, or even go under and have to start again from scratch. Wall Street, however, and its financial institutions… after making incredibly bad financial decisions to the tune of $700 billion… has convinced our government [leaders] to bail them out of their bad debts. I don’t pretend to understand how the bailout will work, how money will flow, and to whom, and… neither (it appears) does the Fed. The details are to be worked out over the coming weeks and months. $700 billion passed by the Senate, forced through the House, and signed by the President, and they don’t know how it’s supposed to be implemented! Am I the only one who’s worried?

I’m reminded of the parable of the unmerciful servant that Jesus first related to Peter:

23"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand
talents [a million trillion gazillion dollars] was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii [a few bucks]. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

29"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

30"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

32"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

35"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

- Matthew 18:23-35

As Christians we understand that we are all sinners. We owe a debt to God that we can never repay. A debt, next to which even $700 billion pales by comparison… yet a debt which has already been completely paid on our behalf by the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us upon the cross. While we are sometimes reluctant to believe it, God does love us, God does forgive us, and THAT… is good news!

That good news brings with it a challenge, because God calls us to forgive one another with the same spirit of compassion and generosity that God in Christ has already shown to us. Theoretically most of us would agree that we should do exactly that, yet there is often a considerable disconnect between our heads and our hearts when it comes to our willingness to forgive those who have hurt us… or betrayed us… or provoked us to rage. But just understanding that we should forgive is rarely enough.

In his book, The Art of Forgiving, Lewis Smedes said:

“We probably won’t do much forgiving unless something inside of us makes us want to do it. I am certain that people never forgive because they believe they have an obligation to do it or because someone told them to do it. Forgiveness has to come from inside as a desire of the heart. We forgive when we feel a strong wish to be free from the pain that glues us to a bruised moment of the past. We forgive when we feel God’s Spirit nudging us with an impulse to pull ourselves out of the sludge of our disabling resentment.”

Understanding forgiveness is rarely enough and sometimes… most of the time… we REALLY need God’s Spirit to push us out of that disabling resentment, and into the freedom that forgiveness brings. As I said before, I don’t know how the bailout will work, but if it is… and if our nation is to heal, and learn, and grow from this… I believe we must start with forgiveness.

Your brother in Christ,

Dave Hoag