Lord, show me Your love and save me as You promised. I have an answer for people who insult me, because I trust what You say. Never keep me from speaking the truth because I depend on Your fair laws. I will obey Your teachings forever and ever. So I will live in freedom because I want to follow Your orders. I will discuss Your rules with kings and not be ashamed. I enjoy obeying Your commands, which I love. I praise Your commands, which I love, and think about Your demands. (Verses 41-48)
Then we will no longer be babies. We will not be tossed about like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to fool us. They make plans and try any kind of trick to fool people into following the wrong path. No! Speaking the truth in love, we will grow up in every way in Christ!
Ephesians 4 italics, mine
There was an amazing barbeque place in Austin, Texas, in the sixties called Shady Grove. It was a favorite date spot for Bill and me when he came down from Dallas on the weekends to see me. He'd already graduated. I, being much younger, was still in school. On an erstwhile Saturday, we ate brisket and sausage, onions and potato salad, and too many pieces of grilled Texas toast and headed off to play tennis. In the car on the way to the courts at the park, Bill said, "Your breath smells bad."
Oh, my gosh! I couldn't believe he'd said that so matter-of-factly. Me, his love. The one whose hand he held. Whose eyes he looked lovingly into. Has bad breath? Here's the thing. Bill reaked of onions from lunch. But did I, in my spirit of gracious acceptance, say anything about that to him? Of course not! I was sweeter than that. "Your breath stinks, too." My loving response. I kinda hated him the rest of the day.
I still don't know the nicest way to tell someone her breath stinks. I worked with a woman for ten years whose breath could knock me over from ten feet away and never said anything for lack of a good way to address it. There's got to be a happy solution to telling the truth.
The obvious problem is that of Bill and me. Both of us were guilty. So if you tell someone the truth about their situation, you become vulnerable to having the same judgment fall back on yourself. Also, there is the matter of hurting their feelings. Making them mad at you. Is bad breath a high enough reason to breach a friendship? How do we speak the truth in love?
The Arizona law that Governor Brewer just vetoed had me thinking about this during the week. The law would've given business owners the right to reject service to gays and lesbians based upon their religious beliefs. For instance, a Christian baker could refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Making a law of a religious tenet. I'm not making an effort to engage in the political correctness or incorrectness of the law. But I've just wondered this week how Jesus would address the issue. I really can't imagine Him declining the wedding cake. I don't think He would officiate at the union. But I think we might have found Him at the wedding speaking the truth...being the Truth. Our judgments hammered into the world whose hearts haven't been changed by the grace we've accepted won't bring people closer to Jesus.
On the other hand, God has given us rules, tenets, commands. And the first, and most important of all is to love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, soul and strength. The second, Jesus said, is to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Again with the heart. One that is given over to Him is also given over to others. We want to tell the truth. To a sister who is in sin. To a brother who is making a huge mistake. To the world who thinks we only do religious stuff in order to lord our righteousness over their heathen souls. How we say what we say makes a tremendous difference. Just as why we say it does. The world won't know Christ from hearts that condemn. Jesus said, "God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but that the world, through Him, could be saved (John 3:17)." Who are we, then, to pass judgment? We keep God's laws for ourselves because we love God! Forcing our family rules on the family next door who doesn't even know us is silly.
I'm not supposed to commit adultery, cheat, lie, steal, covet, murder or disobey my parents. My Father told me this. I think what the world sees when we impose Christian life upon them is that we want them to be as miserable as we are. If our attempts are to make the non-Christian conform to rules instead of to Christ, we have only spoken the truth. Without love. If we don't first care about others, we've missed it entirely. Jesus came to save us, eat with us, heal us, pray over us, calm our storms, show us our hypocrisy, touch our leprous fingers and open our blinded eyes. And when Jesus spoke the truth, "You are right to say you have no husband. Really you have had five husbands and the man you are living with isn't your husband. You have told the truth (John 4)," it was because He loved the woman...or man...or child...or me. That adulterous Samaritan woman whom the nice religious women of the community would not even have at their well was the first person to whom Jesus proclaimed Himself as Messiah.
Living for Jesus is freedom for those who have been set free. What He asks us to do isn't bondage, but a reciprocation of His love. Those outside of relationship with Him will best understand why we won't do certain things by our loving responses to them, not by our throwing them away. I can say with Paul that "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God to save those who are lost (Romans 1)." I want everyone to know Him. May I share with the grace and mercy of one whose many sins have been wiped away, with a grateful heart of compassion for those who live each day without my Jesus.
Then we will no longer be babies. We will not be tossed about like a ship that the waves carry one way and then another. We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to fool us. They make plans and try any kind of trick to fool people into following the wrong path. No! Speaking the truth in love, we will grow up in every way in Christ!
Ephesians 4 italics, mine
There was an amazing barbeque place in Austin, Texas, in the sixties called Shady Grove. It was a favorite date spot for Bill and me when he came down from Dallas on the weekends to see me. He'd already graduated. I, being much younger, was still in school. On an erstwhile Saturday, we ate brisket and sausage, onions and potato salad, and too many pieces of grilled Texas toast and headed off to play tennis. In the car on the way to the courts at the park, Bill said, "Your breath smells bad."
Oh, my gosh! I couldn't believe he'd said that so matter-of-factly. Me, his love. The one whose hand he held. Whose eyes he looked lovingly into. Has bad breath? Here's the thing. Bill reaked of onions from lunch. But did I, in my spirit of gracious acceptance, say anything about that to him? Of course not! I was sweeter than that. "Your breath stinks, too." My loving response. I kinda hated him the rest of the day.
I still don't know the nicest way to tell someone her breath stinks. I worked with a woman for ten years whose breath could knock me over from ten feet away and never said anything for lack of a good way to address it. There's got to be a happy solution to telling the truth.
The obvious problem is that of Bill and me. Both of us were guilty. So if you tell someone the truth about their situation, you become vulnerable to having the same judgment fall back on yourself. Also, there is the matter of hurting their feelings. Making them mad at you. Is bad breath a high enough reason to breach a friendship? How do we speak the truth in love?
The Arizona law that Governor Brewer just vetoed had me thinking about this during the week. The law would've given business owners the right to reject service to gays and lesbians based upon their religious beliefs. For instance, a Christian baker could refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. Making a law of a religious tenet. I'm not making an effort to engage in the political correctness or incorrectness of the law. But I've just wondered this week how Jesus would address the issue. I really can't imagine Him declining the wedding cake. I don't think He would officiate at the union. But I think we might have found Him at the wedding speaking the truth...being the Truth. Our judgments hammered into the world whose hearts haven't been changed by the grace we've accepted won't bring people closer to Jesus.
On the other hand, God has given us rules, tenets, commands. And the first, and most important of all is to love the Lord, our God, with all our hearts, soul and strength. The second, Jesus said, is to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Again with the heart. One that is given over to Him is also given over to others. We want to tell the truth. To a sister who is in sin. To a brother who is making a huge mistake. To the world who thinks we only do religious stuff in order to lord our righteousness over their heathen souls. How we say what we say makes a tremendous difference. Just as why we say it does. The world won't know Christ from hearts that condemn. Jesus said, "God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but that the world, through Him, could be saved (John 3:17)." Who are we, then, to pass judgment? We keep God's laws for ourselves because we love God! Forcing our family rules on the family next door who doesn't even know us is silly.
I'm not supposed to commit adultery, cheat, lie, steal, covet, murder or disobey my parents. My Father told me this. I think what the world sees when we impose Christian life upon them is that we want them to be as miserable as we are. If our attempts are to make the non-Christian conform to rules instead of to Christ, we have only spoken the truth. Without love. If we don't first care about others, we've missed it entirely. Jesus came to save us, eat with us, heal us, pray over us, calm our storms, show us our hypocrisy, touch our leprous fingers and open our blinded eyes. And when Jesus spoke the truth, "You are right to say you have no husband. Really you have had five husbands and the man you are living with isn't your husband. You have told the truth (John 4)," it was because He loved the woman...or man...or child...or me. That adulterous Samaritan woman whom the nice religious women of the community would not even have at their well was the first person to whom Jesus proclaimed Himself as Messiah.
Living for Jesus is freedom for those who have been set free. What He asks us to do isn't bondage, but a reciprocation of His love. Those outside of relationship with Him will best understand why we won't do certain things by our loving responses to them, not by our throwing them away. I can say with Paul that "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God to save those who are lost (Romans 1)." I want everyone to know Him. May I share with the grace and mercy of one whose many sins have been wiped away, with a grateful heart of compassion for those who live each day without my Jesus.
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