But God wants us to know and reflect his pure loveĀ
Psalm 103:7 The Lord revealed his character to Moses and his deeds to the people of Israel.
Litany of Penitence 4:
For our sexual impurity, our exploitation of other people,
And our failure to give of ourselves in love;
Lord, have mercy upon us:
For we have sinned against you.
What do you think of the heading to this post, from last Sundayās sermon by Kevin Antlitz? (You can listen to the context of his statement here (Feb 25): we choose to say no to ourselves so we can say yes to God and to those we love and care for. How do you embrace self-denial personally?
Joel 2:12-13 That is why the Lord says, āTurn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. 13 Donāt tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.ā Return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish.
Today and tomorrow, Iām helping get Caleb and Talita to school and home again because their dad is traveling for work and their mom is a nurse who leaves home early and gets back late. The kids have spent hours laboring over their valentines for their classmates and teachers. Caleb wrote his greetings by himself.
Valerie ādottedā the names for almost-four Talita to trace, and she wrote her name by herself on all these cards:
So much effort to communicate friendship and appreciation!
I’ve been musing over how to combine Valentineās Day with Ash Wednesday. The prophet Joel gave me the answer. God’s heart is full of unfailing love for us, and he wants us to love him back. He wants to repair his broken relationship with us. He can do so if we turn back to him, admitting and grieving what weāve done that hurts him.
Our “valentine” for him is humility, and honesty, and a desire to hear and honor his heart of love.
And thereās no better source of love for those we care about than his Spirit, free to flow within and through us (John 7:37-39). That’s why I’ve chosen a flowing river as an image for Lent. The Spirit wants to cleanse us and grow and water his fruit in the garden of our hearts. Starting with love.
Shutterstock: Liinna Lilli
The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,Ā gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
Matthew 1:21 (Isaiah 43:11, 62:11) [Gabriel told Joseph] āMary will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, āThe Lord saves,ā for he will save his people from their sins.ā
After posting Advent ABC: Holy One early last Sunday (the second Sunday of Advent), I was surprised to find holiness the theme of our service when I got to church. Kevin Antlitz preached a deeply moving sermon, clarifying many misconceptions about the holiness of God and what it means for us to pursue holiness: āItās not about perfection. Itās about direction.ā Jesus shows us that holiness is a human being fully alive; motivated by love, not by fear as we wait to see him again.
Isaiah 29:19 (40:25, 57:15, Proverbs 9:10), John 6:69 The humble will be filled with fresh joy from the Lord. The poor will rejoice in the Holy One.
My husbandās brother Bill and his family spent Thanksgiving with us. The next Tuesday, riding his bike home to Plano from For the Nations in Dallas where he volunteers, Bill was hit by a car, which shattered his legs and broke a rib, collapsing a lung. Last night on the phone he told Dave, āItās an amazing thing. As I lie here, I feel like Iām in the presence of the Holy One. I feel joy.ā
This is more than I usually write for Advent ABC, but I want to tell you my three year old granddaughter Talita, who had been thrilled with all the attention Uncle Bill gave her while he was in Pittsburgh, told me, āIām sad about my boy Billy who got hit by a car and broke his legs like my VovĆ³ [her Brazilian grandmother Luciene, who is walking now!].ā Today I was able to tell Talita her āboy Billyā is home from the hospital, determined, he says, to walk in nine months.
Isaiah 48:12-13, 17-18 āListen to me ā¦ I alone am God, the First and the Last. It was my hand that laid the foundations of the earth, my right hand that spread out the heavens above. When I call out the stars, they all appear in order. ā¦ I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the paths you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to my commands! Then you would have had peaceflowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves of the sea.ā
Jeremiah 9:24 āThose who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and that I delight in these things. I, the Lord, have spoken!ā
Matthew 5:43-45 [Jesus said] You have heard the law that says, āLove your neighbor and hate your enemy.ā But I say, love your enemies! ā¦ In that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.
Peace flowing like a gentle river reminds me of the delightful days our family spent on a boat on the Rio Negro (a branch of the Amazon) in 1998, our son’s choice for his “family senior trip” before he graduated from high school and moved from Brazil to the U.S. for college. We discovered there weren’t even mosquitos to trouble us in the middle of that wide, peaceful river! (It averages 8,040 feet wide!) For more adventure, we had to venture into one of the more turbulent tributaries.
Remember the 2005 Jars of Clay song, āThey Will Know We Are Christians by Our Loveā? Isaiah links soul-peace, shalom, to following God’s commands. And Jesus clarified for us that the most important commands are to love God and love each other.
Like me, Iām sure you flinch when you hear people link hateful, UN-loving language and actions to the name of our precious Lord Jesus.
And, like me, you then say, āLord, please show me any ways my own un-loving attitudes and choices bring dishonor to your name.ā
Because when I empty myself of anger, hurt, bitterness, hatred, shame, and resentment by naming them and asking the Holy Spirit to cleanse and heal me, I create space for him to grow in me his multi-faceted fruit of love (Galatians 5:22-23). And his peace flows through my soul. Iāve had to practice this a lot, and itās worth it, because thatās the way I want to live.
Our longing for the Spiritās shalom, his holistic wellbeing, permeating all aspects of our lives, reflects Godās deep desire for each of us. The Lord told Jeremiah to tell us that he delights in these things. Harmony with him results in the kind of peace that bubbles with the creative energy of goodness, energy for building others up rather than tearing them down. For healing rather than harming.
Listen with me to Joni Eareckson Tada sing āWhen Peace Like a River.ā Her passion and generosity to others with disabilities tell me no circumstances are incompatible with Godās peaceācertainly not mine.
John 21:3-6, 17, 19-22 [After Jesusās resurrection] Simon Peter said, āIām going fishing.ā āWeāll come, too,ā [six other disciples] said. But they caught nothing all night. At dawn Jesus, standing on the beach, called out, āChildren, have you caught any fish?ā No, they replied. Then Jesus said, āThrow out your net on the right-hand side of the boat.ā So they did, and they couldnāt haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. ā¦
Psalm 32:1-2 Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt!
[After breakfast] A third time, Jesus asked Peter, āSimon son of John, do you love me?ā Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, āLord, you know everything. You know that I love you.ā Jesus said, āThen feed my sheep.ā ā¦ Then Jesus told him, āFollow me.ā Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved. ā¦ He asked Jesus, āWhat about him, Lord?ā Jesus replied, āā¦ What is that to you? As for you, follow me.ā
Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose this particular setting for his pivotal conversation with Peter after the crucifixion and resurrection, after Peterās denials warranted a return to the moniker āSimonā?
This miraculous catch of fish is a reprise of Luke 5, offering Peter another chance to recognize and reconnect with Jesus, and with Godās call on his life. A chance to accept forgiveness and to move beyond his failures. A chance to heal his story.
God met me as well, on ensuing visits to the lake. Fast forward from the story I told in the last post. Iām now fourteen, graduated from boarding school, fearful of the future. Sitting alone overlooking the lake, I told the Lord I wasnāt ready to leave Guatemala because I had not yet learned to love. I acknowledged my heart full of resentment and bitterness. I didnāt want to take all that with me into whatever awaited me in my new life in the United States, where my parents would send me for high school. But how could I change? I had confessed my anger and hurt, but it refused to die, rearing its ugly head on a daily basis.
Romans 12:2 was the verse I was considering: āDonāt copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know Godās will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.ā Youāll have to do it, Lord. I have no idea how to change the way I think. On the surface, nothing (apparently) happened. But it was a place marker, an anchor, an intention, a hope: āSomeday, somehow, I will learn how to love other people.ā
Shutterstock: Christopher Moswitzer
Fast forward twenty-five or so more years. A different country, a different lake, a different language. A big difference this time because Iām not alone. A dear friend is listening to my despair over Ephesians 5:1-2, āFollow Godās example,Ā therefore, as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us.ā
āFor most of my life,ā I confessed to my friend, āIāve begged God to teach me to love him and to love other people. But I donāt know how. I have no idea what it feels like to be a dearly loved child.ā
āThen letās ask him to show you,ā she said. What followed was one of the most powerful prayer visions I have ever experienced. It healed a fracture line in my soul. It changed forever the way I knew Jesus and the way I viewed myself and other people. Literally, it saved my life. It was the beginning of learning the Romans 12:2 different way of thinking I had begged God for at fourteen.
Why did this healing take so long? Why did I have to go through so much trauma and drama between fourteen and forty? Iāll probably never know. But Iām grateful, so thankful that it did happen. It was an essential foundation stone in the healing journey that has continued through the almost thirty years since that day.
Tomorrow Dave and I plan to board a plane for Ireland, for a ātriple trip,ā celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary last August, Daveās St. Patrickās Day 70th birthday, and researching Book 3 of the Cally and Charlie series. I have the senseāthough I donāt know how, exactlyāthat the week in Ireland will be another significant step in the healing God continues in my life. Iāll let you know!
2 Peter 1:16-18 For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw his majestic splendor with our own eyes when he received honor and glory from God the Father. The voice from the majestic glory of God said to him, āThis is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.āWe ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.
John 17:18, 22, 26 [Jesus prayed,] āJust as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. ā¦ I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. ā¦ I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.ā
Last Saturday, August 6, the Church worldwide remembered the Transfiguration of Jesus, another pivotal moment in his life when, as at his Baptism, God the Father reminded his Son that he loved him and found great joy in him.
So it seems fitting that we conclude our consideration of Peterās writings by returning to chapter 1 of his second letter, when he recalls the impact of Jesusā transfiguration on his own life. Peter was there! He saw the glory of the Lord revealed on that mountain. He must have recalled his own inept response, yet that was swallowed up into the wonder of this intimacy with his Lord. We saw with our own eyes ā¦ we heard ā¦ we were with him.ā
After his baptism, the Spirit sent Jesus into the desert, where he was tempted. After his transfiguration, Jesus turned toward Jerusalem, where he would be killed. In both moments of his life on planet Earth, Jesus carried as an anchor in his soul his Father’s love and his own deep resonance with his Fatherās joy.
One of the greatest delights of my life is to walk into the home of either of my daughters and be met with cries of āGrammy! Grammy!ā Talita does a little dance. Caleb runs to show or tell me something. Liliana stretches out her arms. And my heart responds with profound gratitude. āThank you, Lord, that through these little ones you communicate your love and joy to me. I receive it with thanksgiving and wonder.ā
Thereās another side, though, to August 6. Itās also the anniversary of the first bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima. Greater even than the wonder of the love of children is the mystery that God still loves and claims his children even when they destroy one another. Even when they crucified Jesus. Even then, Peter tells us, God is patient, not wanting anyone to be destroyed but rather to repent (2 Peter 3:9). On the cross, Jesus said about those who were driving those horrid nails into his flesh, āFather, forgive them, for they donāt know what they are doingā (Luke 23:34).
āTis mercy all, immense and free. ā¦ Amazing love, how can it be.ā
But God has given each of us a gift, by David Kornfield
1 Peter 4:8-11 Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins. ā¦ God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God.
I just spent two precious hours participating in a virtual retreat with beloved friends in Brazil, a wonderful gift from God to me. I felt deeply loved through their prayer for me after I shared what God had put in my heart to speak to them.
What makes the difference between doing something for someone as a job or responsibility and doing it with positive spiritual impact? I believe the difference is whether we offer our service with love mediated by the Holy Spirit. An example comes from the experience of my friend Carol. She told a group of friends Tuesday night that she believes God has put her in exactly the right place. She has started her new job at the information desk of a large hospital this week. Already a person requested a form to tell the hospital Carolās service to him had been exceptional.
āItās not me, itās the Holy Spirit,ā Carol told us. āI try to see each person who comes to the desk as God sees them. Iāve been amazed at what God has shown me and has filled my heart to say as encouragement to each one. Hospitals are stress-filled places. I want them to carry a sense of peace and support as they leave me.ā
She then told us the story of a man who left the desk to visit his wife and returned to tell her his wife had died. āWhy would a total stranger tell me that?ā Carol wondered. āOnly because he somehow felt the sweet presence of the Holy Spirit calming and comforting him.ā
Peterās linking of the concepts of love and gifts reminds me of Gary Chapmanās ālove languages.ā So I asked my husband Dave to share from a conversation he had with God about one of his growth goals, to better love the people around him. God showed him how he (God) expresses all five of Chapmanās love languages:
In my devotional life, I talk with God, and he talks with me. This calls for a sanctified imagination, but I believe itās real. What follows is God speaking to me about His love languages.
I love you. I never get tired of telling you that. It would be tricky to try to limit my love to any given love language, but verbal love is certainly a very big part of my love! Consider how I express all five:
Verbal love. āIn the beginning, was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.ā (John 1.1). My verbal love starts there and never stops. You can track it through other key references like John 1.14-18; 5.39, 40; 2Tm 3.16-17 and Heb 4.12 for starters. Then you can pick it up in my love expressed in my creation (Ps 19.1-7), spilling over to my written Word (Ps 19.8-14; all of Ps 119!).
Touch or physical love. Go through the Gospels some time and notice how often Jesus touched people physically or they touched him physically. Dozens of times! And since his Ascension, the Body of Christ is his hands and feet, touching others physically and tangibly (Mt 25.31-46).
Gifts. John 3:16 declares how my love expressed itself in the greatest gift of all, which opens the door for spiritual birth and transformation (John 1.12-18). And then my love goes on to spiritual gifts ā Eph 4.9-116; 1Co 12-14; Rm 12.8-16; 1Pe 4.8-11 ā all of them in the context of love. And thatās only the beginning of the gifts Iāve poured out on you ā physical, financial, social, spiritual, relational ā so many!
Service. Mt 20.25-28; Ph 2.1-9. My utter and profound commitment to being ezer [helper, a frequent descriptor of God in the Old Testament, e.g. Psalm 46:1, and of Eve in Genesis 2:18]. Serving. Elevating. Raising up. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others (Mark 10:45).
Quality time. Thatās what you experience with Me at the beginning of every day and in your divine encounters, in my kairos. I make everything beautiful in My time (Ec 3.11).
I am off any scale you can picture in using all five. Try finding the horizon of any of those and you will find itās like looking at the ocean. There is a horizon, but thatās simply the limit of your vision. It doesnāt come close to reaching the end of the ocean! Thatās how I am toward you in each of these five love languages.
Hmm, why am I not surprised, Lord? I guess the only surprise is that I havenāt seen this so clearly before. Iāll find it easier now to learn and use all five languages. Looking at you, I see how to do it. This adds depth to Your words āWalk with me and work with Me ā watch how I do it!ā [Matthew 11:29, The Message].
Help me today, Lord, to walk in Your love and be a conduit of Your love to each person I meet virtually, by email, WhatsApp, Zoom or in any other way, including personal connection with Deb and anyone else you bring to my home today. I pray in your holy name, so be it.
A suggestion from Dave:
Ric Warrenās The Purpose-Driven Life is a wonderful forty-day devotional describing how God fulfills His purposes in each of us. Days 29-35 focus on God shaping us for His service. Day 31 in particular highlights the S.H.A.P.E. he used for each of us: Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, Experience. You can learn more about that here.
What gift(s) have you received from God? Today is a great day to tell him thank you, and to ask him to make his gifts to you even more effective in sharing his love, through the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:16-20 Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.When they saw him, they worshiped himābut some of them doubted! Jesus came and told his disciples, āI have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.ā
Hebrews 10:24 Let us think of ways to motivate each other to love and good works.
The contrast between the message the guards were ordered to spread by the Jewish leaders and the message Jesus told his disciples to teach could not be more different:
The premise of the Jewish leaders: If we lie convincingly enough, we can get away with murder. Jesusā premise: God loves you so much I was willing to lay down my life for you.
The intent of the Jewish message: to save their own skin. Jesusā intent: to save the world.
The authority on which the orders of the Jewish leaders were based: human distortion of biblical teaching (Matthew 23:23 āYou ignore the more important aspects of the law: justice, mercy, and faithā). Jesusā authority: given him by his Father, the Creator, Sustainer, and Sovereign over heaven and earth.
The heart of the Jewish message: āMaintain the status quo with us in charge.ā The heart of Jesusā message: Love God and others (Matthew 22:37-39); lay down your own life to serve others (Matthew 20:28).
Radical love. Radical service.
What does that mean to you today? Iām on a retreat with a group of lovely and strong-minded people. Many opportunities to recognize ways Iām more like the Jewish leaders than like Jesus, and to realize how generous Jesusā love is (even for me!). Opportunities to grow!
Matthew 24:7-14, 20, 25 Nation will go to war against nation ā¦ There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come. Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. ā¦ See, I have warned you about this ahead of time.
One reason Karis cites in her journals for wanting her story told is the prevalence in some places of a āhealth and wealth gospel,ā the idea that if you have āenoughā faith, God will make you prosperous and free of suffering. A message Jesus neither modeled nor taught. Karis reacted passionately against the implied judgment of this belief on many of her friends who were neither healthy nor wealthy but lived their lives of hardship in deep faith and joy in Godās love for them, measured not in gifts of the world but in gifts of the heart.
Karis’s journals, written over twenty years in her tiny script
One time when Karis was hospitalized as a teenager, suffering from uncontrollable diarrhea and dehydration that led to several months on TPN (nutrition through her blood stream), āchained,ā as she said, to an IV pump, a woman we didnāt know showed up in her hospital room. The woman told me she had crossed Brazil by bus to deliver a message from God to Karis. She then turned to Karis, who was too weak at the time to stand, and demanded she confess her sins of unbelief, get out of that bed, and live the triumphant life of faith. āYou are a disgrace to the Gospel and to God,ā she shouted at Karis. āShame on you! Shame on your family, pretending to be ministers of the Lord. Look at you, wasting resources on hospitals and machines and medicines. Unbelievers! This money should go to the churches!ā
She walked over to Karis and yanked her arm. āDown on your knees now, you hypocritical sinner! Confess your unbelief! Then stand up and walk and end this charade!ā
By then, of course, I was loosening the womanās grip on Karis and escorting her to the door. āI have been obedient! I have delivered Godās message! The rest is up to you!ā She was still shouting as I closed the door and ran to Karis, who heaved with sobs.
Later, when she was stronger, Karis spoke to me about the womanās visit, with an intensity I had not seen in her before. āMama,ā she said, āthat woman blasphemed my Lord. I canāt bear it.ā She began crying again. āItās not what she said about meāI can handle that. I know I need to grow in faith, especially in faith to trust him when Iām weak and in pain. Itās what she said about who God is, as if he hasnāt walked with me and loved me and comforted me and provided for me with such gentle tenderness all my life. As if his words to me every dayāwords of love and encouragementāare not true. That hurt me to my core. Mama, please donāt let such a thing happen again. I canāt bear it. Itās like a sword piercing my heart.ā
Then her smile broke out. āMaybe that woman doesnāt know about the thousands of people praying for me around the world. They canāt all be as deficient in faith as us, right?ā She giggled. āWell, Iām in cahoots with God. From now on, Iām going to pray for God to heal whatever has wounded her. Iām going to pray she can know how extravagantly her Father loves her.ā
Perhaps in Heaven Karis has been privileged to know the result of her prayers for this woman whose name we never learned. Lord, if sheās still alive, please care for her.
Reading Matthew 24āwhich sounds all too sadly familiar, doesnāt it?āthis is what caught my attention. āMany will turn away from me ā¦ and the love of many will grow cold.ā
Love God and love each other (John 13:34-35). Isnāt that Jesusā central message? A direct contrast to ābetray and hate each other.ā
When we turn toward Jesus, our love for him and for people grows. When we turn away from Jesus, the natural consequence is hatred and slander.
Letās turn toward Jesus. Whatever the circumstances of our lives.
Debra Kornfield 