February 8, 2013

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

It is easy to say, "I love you." But how can you be sure if someone really does love you?

Let's learn from the original Lover, the best Lover, the source of all love - God.

God teaches us that love must be proved by a sacrificial demonstration of true commitment. And if love is anything, it is a commitment! One indication of commitment is cost. What are you willing to pay to prove your love? How did God demonstrate His?

First, through creation!

Can you view a stunning sunset and not see divine love?

Can you look at a Spring landscape and miss the message?

Can you hold a newborn and not appreciate what inspired such a miracle?

Can you stargaze into a moonlit sky and not recognize the love behind it?

Creation surely demonstrates a supernatural love. But while it is proof of His creativity it didn't cost Him anything.

Then, through Christ!

If you ever had a long-distance relationship you know it is hard to love that way. Love is better when it is up close and personal.

Through the creation of man, God demonstrated that He desired a personal relationship with him. And before that love was rejected by disobedience, Adam walked and talked with God and experienced the love of God up close and personal. But sin resulted in a long-distance relationship.

So, once again, God demonstrated His desire for a personal relationship by coming in person. Jesus, God's Son, the Word of God, put on flesh and came to dwell among us! He was "Emmanuel" - "God with us"!

Love was demonstrated by a precious gift. Jesus left the splender and security of Heaven and slipped into flesh and blood so He could get personally involved with loving us. During His brief visit to earth He demonstrated daily what the love of God looks like.

Then, Through the Cross!

The ultimate and undeniable proof of God's love was death on the cross. What higher commitment could you demonstrate than dying for one you love? What greater cost can you pay than substituting your life for the one you love?

And that is what Christ's death was! It was a substitutionary death for you! You were sentenced to die in the sin that separated you from a Holy God. But Jesus suffered death for you! Though He was innocent He assumed your guilt. He bore the guilt and the penalty for your sins. He took rejection so you could be accepted into a personal relationship with God!

There can be no doubt that God loves you! And, He loved you first! And He loved you when you were lost and unloveable!

God can do no more than He has done to demonstrate how much He loves you!

So, how can you demonstrate your love for Him?

Receive that love by faith! It is a gift purchased for you and offered to you. Jesus is God's valentine to you, how can you refuse it?

February 7, 2013

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited." Romans 12:14-16

One of the first disillusioning experiences of my ministry happened in my first meeting with fellow pastors in my area. Prior to prayer we were sharing concerns. Several of them were facing some very tough situations and asked to be supported by their brothers. Each of them was met with great empathy, compassion and heartfelt prayer.

When it came my turn to share, things had been going well with my church and my people so I shared some praises giving God glory for what He had done. To my great disappointment my praises were met with a great lack of enthusiasm. In fact, the responses ranged from indifference to resentment. Nowadays we would say it was "awkward".

I left that meeting feeling sad that my brothers in ministry could not seem to find it in their heart to share in my rejoicing. I was not sharing those things to brag, I wanted to praise God for His faithfulness. It hurt when they acted as they did. As I worked through my disappointment, I resolved that while I could do nothing to change how they responded to me, I would consciously celebrate with them whenever they shared victories. And, in the many years since, I have - always - every time. I did not want any other pastor to feel the disappointment I suffered that day.

For some reason, especially among pastors, there seems to be a spirit of competitiveness that exists. That spirit makes it hard to celebrate the successes of others. I have seen it happen between churches, too. Human egos can get in the way at times.

In this portion of Scripture we are reminded that God expects us to empathize with one another. When your heart is breaking, I weep with you.I share your pain and get involved in providing comfort. When you get a big win, I am to celebrate as though it happened to me!

May this be a reminder that God has not called us to compete with each other but to COMPLETE each other for His glory!

Are you competing or completing?

February 6, 2013

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited." Romans 12:14-16

Giving grace and getting rid of grudges is a big first step to finding peace. You cannot have spiritual peace while you are holding onto resentment or hostility. The two are incompatible.

Only if you are living as a holy sacrifice surrendered to God and filled with His Spirit will you be able to be a grace giver. Only those who have been transformed by grace are able to grace others.

The second step to finding peace is the ability to empathize with the emotions of others.

What does this have to do with peace?

Empathy is the ability to enter into the feelings of others. It cares how others feel and desires to celebrate the positive emotions while consoling the painful ones.

Again, it is a test of love. It shows that you love another person well enough to set aside your own emotional needs to respond to the emotional needs of others. Such an unselfish love is not natural, it is supernatural. It is the love Jesus demonstrates for you and me!

Such love shows that you are at ease with your own emotional state - at peace with yourself. That allows you to enter into the joys and sufferings of others.

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin." Hebrews 4:15

Jesus is able to know how hard life is and how much it can hurt because He lived life and faced the temptations of life - EVERY ONE - so that He can identify exactly with what you are feeling in any difficulty trial of life.

Why would He love like that? Why would He willing suffer as He did? Why would he relive that pain by identifying with others' pain?

It is because God loves like that! And because He loved God and God's love was perfected in Him, Jesus loves like that.

So, if God's love is active in your life you will love in the same way He loves. You will genuinely rejoice in their joys and sincerely share their sorrows.

Extending grace to others. Empathizing with others. Those are two big steps to inner peace and to developing peace in a fellowship.

Are you a peacemaker?

Are you able to give to others the very emotional support you desire for yourself?

February 5, 2013

I’m convinced that one of the most difficult things that the Scripture asks us to do is found in Romans 12:15. That verse says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

 

Now the mourning part is not so hard. If there are those who are having a difficult time in life, going through trials and tribulations, we can usually muster up enough sympathy and empathy to hold their hand and provide a shoulder for them to cry on, maybe even to cry with them,and to pray for them during their difficulties.

But to “rejoice with those who rejoice” may be harder.

"It is, indeed, more difficult to congratulate another on his success, especially if his success involves disappointment to us, than it is to sympathize with his sorrow and his loss. It is only when self is dead that we can take as much joy in the success of others as in our own" (Barclay, p. 182). "

Now, it is pretty easy to rejoice at the wedding of a friend if you’re happily married. But if you’re single, and you’d like to be married; if you’re lonely and feel rejected, then an invitation to someone else’s wedding may be a pretty difficult thing to handle.

You drive an old car that’s showing its age, and then your neighbor buys a brand new SUV.

Your sister’s kids are all star athletes and honor students and yours act like juvenile delinquents.

 

Someone else at the office gets a promotion and a raise, and you don’t, even though you have seniority. It is kind of hard sometimes, isn’t it, to “rejoice with those who rejoice” ?

You see, one of the difficulties is that when something good happens to others, we often compare ourselves to them. “Well, I’m smarter than they are.” Or, “I work harder than they do.” Or, “They’re just lucky. They get all the breaks, and I don’t.”

Imagine that you are at an NFL game with a friend. You were given two free tickets to the Redskins game and so you invited him to go with you. These are the best seats you have ever had! You can’t believe your good fortune. It turns out to be a great game and they are winning big against the Cowboys and you have a great view of it all. With every big play , you and your friend jump up and rejoice together, high-fiving and cheering for the home team. You rejoice with those who rejoice. But then, between the third and fourth, a voice comes over the P.A. and announces that someone in the stadium is going to win a new house, a new car, a dream vacation. He announces the level, the section, the row. It is someone in your row! But when he reads the seat number you see that your friend is sitting in that seat. He has won. You have not. They were your tickets. You invited him. You just happened to sit the wrong seat. Technically, both are your seats. But he got the big prize package – you didn’t! Now how easy is it to rejoice with those who rejoice? Suddenly you are overwhelmed with feelings of anger, envy, discontentment. You pretend to be happy, but inside you mutter and complain. You hate your friend and want what he has been given.

To rejoice with others when they are rejoicing is a hard thing to ask. Especially when things aren't going as well with you. God is asking you to be as happy for others as you would be if the good thing was happening to you.

Are you able to do that?

If you can, it is an indication that God's sincere love is at work in you. If not, there is some work to be done.

February 4, 2013

"Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Romans 12:15

The fact that the Great Apostle includes this admonition with this portion of Scripture is telling.

For one thing I think it recognizes that empathy does not come naturally for us. We have an inherent self-interest and we care about those who care about us. But to reach out to those with whom we have no vested interest is not something that happens on its own.

So, what must happen to make you care about others? What brings you to a place of sharing in sorrow and celebrating in joy?

At the risk of being redundant, the very things I have been showing you over the past few weeks:

Surrender

It seems to me the best way to care about others more is to surrender your heart and mind and will to the One Who loves them most. When you offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God, He changes how you think - about Him, about yourself, and about others!

Selfless love is born in surrender.
 

Serve

The test of love is service. When you love someone you serve them. When you are surrendered to God you serve Him by serving those He loves. And as you serve others, as you become more involved in their lives, and you get to know them better and begin to like them more.

Also, as you serve them they begin to feel more loved by your and by the Father.
 

Sincere Love

Sincere love is the result of being surrendered to God and being involved in serving others. Sincere love is evidence that God's love is being expressed in your heart. It is more than a feeling it is a commitment. It is a decision. God expects you to show sincere love to people you feel warm emotions for and those you don't.
 

Godly love empathizes with the pain and problems of others. It offers to help bear the pain. It brings a comforting presence. It joins in prayer. It offers friendship. It meets practical needs. It sheds tears with those who are sad. It celebrates with those who are enjoying life.

Empathy is a God-given gift through which heavy load are lightened and broken hearts get mended. It is evidence that God has done a transforming work in your heart.

When I care as deeply over the needs of others as I do over my own, then I know God has done a work in me and wants to do a strong work through me!

Are you surrendered to God? Completely?

Are you serving God by serving others?

Are you showing sincere love?

February 3, 2013

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." Romans 12:15

What IS empathy? What does it mean? I like this definition: "Empathy your pain in my heart."

So, what does this have to do with peace?

Quite a bit, actually!

 Here's how.

When I am as worried about how you are feeling as I am about how I feel, I am less likely to create trouble for you. I am less likley to hurt you or offend you.

When I try to put myself into your situation and try to imagine what you are feeling, I will be more careful in how I treat you and quicker to lend a hand.

God created us. He made us in His image. Seeing as He is all-knowing and all-wise and He created us with emotions, one would assume that He would be able to empathize with us when we are hurting or suffering. But, prior to sending His Son Jesus, He really could not fully understand the fears and frustations human beings face on a daily basis.

But, after 33 years on planet earth as a humble carpenter turned evangelist, God not only could understand us better but He can also empathize with our pain and suffering. In His time on earth, Jesus was confronted with a myriad of emotions and feelings.
 

That is why Hebrews reminds us, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tested in every way as we are, yet without sin."

Jesus brought us peace by subjecting himself to trouble and tribulations that eventually lead to His excruciating toturous death. In that time He felt the sting of criticism, the loneliness of rejection, the humiliation of being despised and the frustration of being misunderstood. And, He knows how to comfort us since He can empathize with our emotions. He also knows how to interceed for us before the Father because He has felt the full range of emotions.

When I become a grace-giver instead of a grudge-holder, I help bring peace.

And when I care as deeply about your emotions as I do my own, that helps create peace.
 

Looking for peace? Discover grace and peace in Jesus, the empathetic Savior!

February 2, 2013

When Jesus wanted to illustrate what grace is like and how it operates He told this story:

"Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them. It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. "That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.' He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.' "But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time. "All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.' "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen. The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!' "His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!'" Luke 15:11-32

You know this classic story as the "Prodigal Son". The word "prodigal" means "extravagant".

Who was the real prodigal in this story when it comes to grace?

Right! The father!

Both boys were extravagant in their foolish abuses of grace! They illustrate the two ways grace is most often rendered ineffective.

The younger son exploited it. He took selfish advantage of the father's love and kindness. He took the money and ran because he could.

The older brother expected it. All he had ever known was the goodness and generosity of the father, so it lost its impact upon him. Grace is primarily about relationship and the older son lost his appreciation for his father.

While the younger son abused grace the older son refused it.

In your experience, aren't those the two most common ways we abuse grace? Regardless of which way we damage our relationship with God it is equally foolish and disgraceful. Let's call it what it is - sinful!

Will you take some time and reread this story?

Will you meditate on the love and grace of the Father?

Will you allow the Spirit to search you to see if their is any disgrace in your heart or mind that keeps you from knowing the grace of God?