June 29, 2015

"For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars, he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations."  Psalms 33:4-11

These words were written centuries before the United States of America was ever thought of, so to apply the Psalm directly to our nation is foolish. However, truths and beliefs that are declared are timeless and bear resemblance to the principles upon which our Founders built our great nation.

I will highlight some of those for you in this post and I think you will see what I mean.

The Principles of Our Nation

Two of the founding principles upon which our great nation was established are mentioned here: righteousness and justice. Righteousness essentially means that we look to God to determine what is right and wrong and justice is the implementation of right and wrong. A sincere wholesale return to righteousness and justice would sure help restore our nation today!

In addition, there are a couple of big concepts mentioned here that were embraced by the Founders and contributed to the greatness of the USA.

"For the word of the LORD is right and true"

The "word of the Lord" refers to the Ten Commandments. Those commandments were highly regarded by many of the Founders and would form the foundation for our system of justice, morality, and in defining our God-given rights. For example:

The first four commandments form the basis for the following rights: The Freedom of Speech, The Freedom of Assembly and Freedom of Religion.

Commandments five and seven form the foundation for the Sanctity of marriage and the primacy of the family.

The sixth commandment forms the right to life while the ninth suggests the right to justice under the law.

And the eighth and tenth commandments are the basis for the right to pursue, possess, and protect private property.

A representation of Moses with the Ten Commandments is etched on the wall of the Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC.

A statue of Moses holding the Ten Commandments is featured in the rotunda of the Library of Congress.

The Ten Commandments are symbolized in the floor of the National Archives Building in Washington , D.C.

Any objective scholarship will show the powerful impact that the Ten Commandments had on the Founders as they forged the founding documents upon with their new nation would be established. The "Word of the Lord" has proven "right and true" for generations of free Americans over its 235 years of existence.

Little did Moses know the incredible influence of those words God etched on the tablets he carried down from his encounter with God on Mt. Sinai. Several great nations have been built upon their timeless truths.

But Commandments are not kept or carried out by nations, they are observed by people - individuals like you and me. Each time you obey God's commandment and put it into practice you not only benefit yourself but you strengthen your nation! What better way to prove the "Word of the Lord right and true" than to do right and live in His truth? Are you doing that? Will you?

June 28, 2015

"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, does not boast, it is not proud." I Corinthians 13:4

Would you rather have a porcupine or a puppy for a pet?

Have you ever tried to cuddle a porcupine? Well, don't!

However, cuddling a puppy has been proven to be good for your emotional and mental health!

You may be thinking, "Brad, what are you talking about? How do you get porcupines and puppies out of this verse?"

"Love is patient, love is kind" means that God's love gives you the ability to take grief from someone and give them grace in return. That sounds like a puppy to me! No matter how mean you are to your dog it will always come back ready to lick your face.

Not so with porcupines. They can't even cuddle with each other because of their sharp quills that cause pain to whomever they get close to. 

That reminds me of jealousy, boasting and arrogance. Those attitudes manifested in your life make it hard for you to get close to other people without hurting them.  Others will find it hard to get close to you as well.

Love is patience and kindness.

Love is not jealousy, boasting or arrogance.

Patience is not jealousy, boasting or arrogance.

Kindness is not jealousy, boasting or arrogance.

So, if love is the "more excellent way" and you don't have it that's a problem!

Some of the problems created by jealousy, boasting and arrogance are:

- Comparing yourself to others always putting yourself in a more favorable light
- Competing with others to make you look better and others look worse
- Conspiring to undermine the success of others so you appear more successful
- Controlling situations and trying to control others so you will feel like you're in charge

None of those individually will make you more cuddly. Each will tend to push others away. All of them or any combination of them turn you into a full-fledged porcupine!

What should you do? How do you become a puppy and not a porcupine?

- Realize - you need God love and you haven't received it.           
- Repent - tell God you are tired of your jealousy, boasting and pride
- Receive - empty yourself and receive the fullness of His love by faith
- Readjust - live differently in the power of His Spirit and begin to love:

When tempted to compare I will compliment instead!

When tempted to compete I will celebrate instead!

When tempted to conspire I will contribute instead!

When tempted to control I will commit it to God instead!

If it were only that easy for real porcupines!

June 27, 2015

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love envies not; love flaunts not itself and is not puffed up.” I Corinthians 13:4

The Christian Faith is all about relationships, that is why love is such an indispensable factor in faith. Faith begins with a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and then must be expressed in fellowship with other Christ-followers.

That is also why attitudes like jealousy, boasting, and arrogance are so negative – because they harm relationships. It is hard to love someone who is jealous or boastful or arrogant. Some people are all three. If you have ever tried to live with such a person you know what I’m talking about.

Today I am focusing on arrogance. The Greek word for arrogance has the idea of “puffed up or inflated like a balloon”. So an arrogant person is one who is “inflated with self-importance” or you could say he is a wind bag.

My Mom has a saying about an arrogant person. She posits, “If I could buy him for what he is worth and sell him for what he thinks he is worth I’d become a millionaire!”

I admit that’s a bit harsh, but an arrogant person suffers with an overblown idea of his own importance and therefore struggles to appreciate the value of others. An arrogant person also has a hard time realizing his need for God or the love of God.

It was attitudes like jealousy, boastfulness and arrogance that caused the Apostle Paul to write Chapter 13 of the Corinthian letter. The church was being divided by competing selfish interests and out of control egos. Rather than completing each other they were competing against each other. A church in this condition cannot long survive.

Take the time to study the Chapters leading up to this chapter and you will understand why Paul felt compelled to teach these believers about “the more excellent way”. This most excellent way begins with patience and kindness. It is impossible to be patient or kind with a heart filled with jealousy, boasting and arrogance.

God loves the Church and designed it so it can only operate in the power of His love. He designed it to operate with a diversity of gifts that can only survive and thrive when united in His love through the Holy Spirit. Individual egos must be consecrated to God’s will, cleansed by the blood of Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. Only then can believers complete each other rather than compete. It is the only hope for the Corinthian Church or for FredWes.

How is your attitude?

Do you have your ego under control?

Are you competing within your church or are you completing it?

June 26, 2015

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love envies not; love flaunts not itself and is not puffed up.” I Corinthians 13:4

Love is a big idea. It is so big that it could only come from God.

So love must me expressed in large yet simple terms.

Week one I summarized the big ideas of love being patient and kind this way – “Love gets grief and gives grace.”

We two I will sum up the negative traits of envy, boastfulness and arrogance in this phrase – “Love completes not competes”.

What do I mean by that?

Envy or jealousy is zealous to get what others have and to guard what it thinks others want to take.

Boastfulness throws a parade for itself! It flaunts and promotes itself above others.

Arrogance is the soil in which the seeds of envy and boasting grow and bear fruit.

A heart that harbors envy, boastfulness and arrogance has little room for love as great and pervasive as God’s love. Such attitudes lead you to compare and compete with others. You measure your self-worth and net worth in comparison to theirs. If you come out well in the comparison you will feel superior and if you don’t you will feel threatened. Take this story for example:

Two shopkeepers were bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend each day keeping track of each other's business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival. One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, "I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. Would you be rich? You can be very rich, but he will be twice as wealthy. Do you wish to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. What is your desire?" The man frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, "Here is my request: Strike me blind in one eye!"

Those are the attitudes of envy, boastfulness and arrogance in action. As you can see, there is nothing even remotely loving about them. When you allow these attitudes to remain unchecked and you choose not to deal with them you will end up in a similar state as this merchant. It never ends well for those who live to compete and not complete.

Envy, boasting and arrogance are written into our nature. It is what we have inherited from Adam and Eve. These were the attitudes that led them astray. This “unholy trinity” is the cause of the majority of sinful acts committed by those who have not discovered the “more excellent way”. The presence of these attitudes denotes the absence of God’s Perfect Love.

God called you and me to complete each other not to compete against each other. He offers us a love that can so radically change us that we will become as happy for the success and prosperity of others as we would be for our own success!

Wow!

That’s hard! That’s a totally different spirit! It would take a miracle for that to happen!

Exactly!

June 25, 2015

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love envies not; love flaunts not itself and is not puffed up.” I Corinthians 13:4

The Great Commandment demands you to, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" I Corinthians 13:4-8 describes in great detail what that love looks like.

How can you love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind if you are envious, boastful or arrogant?

How can you love your neighbor fully if you are filled with envy, boasting and arrogance?

The answer in each case is, “You can’t!”

Since God gave the Great Commandment not the great suggestion, you have a problem.

You must be patient and kind but you cannot be envious, boastful or arrogant.

The word for “boastful” literally means “to parade yourself”. That’s a humorous image isn’t it?

I doubt if you would organize a parade for yourself but when you have a boastful spirit you are prone to put yourself on parade.

One central truth of the Great Commandment and I Corinthians 13 is that life is not about you! You need to make life about God and about others.

If you read the preceding chapters of I Corinthians you will see some illustrations of the envy, boasting, and arrogance that led Paul to write this Chapter. The Corinthian church was becoming filled with discord and strife due to their self-centeredness.

True love, perfect love, is not envious of anything except more of God.

True love boasts only of God.

True love comes to those who understand that when you have Him, you have all you need! What else would you desire? You would have no need for envy.

True love is so mindful of God’s greatness that it has nothing to boast of but Him!

To live in God’s love you must check your ego at the door.

Have you done that?

Is all of your boasting in Him?

June 24, 2015

“Love is patient, love is kind. Love envies not; love flaunts not itself and is not puffed up.” I Corinthians 13:4

Our challenge this Summer will be to get our human minds around the idea of a supernatural love.

No pressure!

You get the idea you may be in trouble when you learn that the first characteristic of this “agape” love is patience. We learned that patience means having a “long fuse”. It is the ability to take abuse from another without being overcome by anger. If you can do that you have love but if not, you don’t!

Yikes!

Love is also kind. Paired with patience, kindness means that a loving “long fused” person absorbs unkindness and returns kindness. If you can do that you have love. If you cannot you don’t have it.

One of the barriers to patience and kindness is envy. You can’t be patient or kind if envy is in your heart. The word used for envy means to “boil over” with zeal for what someone else is or for what someone else has. You cannot love a person and be envious toward them. You won’t find it in you to be patient or kind, either.

Is there someone you envy?

Think about your attitude toward him.

Are you happy when that person succeeds?

Can you congratulate him and really mean it?

Probably not!

It was envy that motivated Cain to kill Abel. You would think a brother would love his brother, but because of envy he couldn’t.

What caused Joseph’s brothers to toss him into a pit to kill him and then deciding to sell him as a slave? It was envy!

Envy drove King Saul to pursue David with the intention of killing him.

Love does not envy.

Love is patient.

Love is kind.

This is going to be hard, isn’t it?

June 23, 2015

^"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."  II Corinthians 5:17

There are a lot of things I would have liked to change about myself.

Growing up in Indiana where high school basketball is SO important, I wanted to be taller than I was. But I wasn't.

I wish I could have changed the amount of athleticism I possessed so I could have been quicker and faster and jumped higher. But I couldn't.

If I could have been more talented in music I would have made that change. But I couldn't.

God knew that we are capable of changing ourselves. That is precisely why He sent Jesus to change things for us!

One of the major change points in your life will be the day you understand how little you can actually change.

But change you must! I must change. Here's why:

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"  Romans 3:

"The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

You and I are born as sinners. As sinners we have separated ourselves from a holy God. That was the reason Jesus came. He came to take our sins upon Himself and die as a sacrificial offering for our sins. We deserved death because we are sinful. He deserved the best of life since He was holy.

Jesus changed His address by coming to earth. He changed form by coming as a man. And He changed from holy to sinful as He took our sins upon Himself on the cross. And the only reason He made all those changes was so He could change us.

If you will change your mind and trust Him for your salvation rather than trying to earn it yourself, everything will change! You will become a new creation in Christ! Your relationship with God will change. You will have a change of heart. Your mind will be transformed. Your eternal destination will change. Your desires and motivations will change.

One small change from you is all it takes for Him to make big changes in you!