Whole-Hearted Love

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” (Luke 10:27; Matthew 22:37). That can sound pretty vague and spiritualized. What if it said, “Love the Lord your God with all your career, family, recreation, finances, priorities, emails, thoughts....” If any of those are not God-centered, then we aren’t loving God with our whole hearts. That makes it more personal—and more difficult. I know when I’ve heard that verse quoted my tendency is to think, “Yeah, I love God as much as I can.” But then I go home from church and don’t think much about it until the next week. I guarantee I’ve made choices that are less than God-honoring and less than loving, probably every day whether I realize it or not. Just trying to focus on God’s priorities for one whole day can be exhausting, much less keeping it up 24/7. 

Then add on “Love your neighbor” (Matt. 22:38) and the self-deception thickens. “Yeah, I love people. I don’t get mad at the slow cashier or the bad driver. I’m kind to the foreign kid waiting tables. I mow my neighbor’s lawn occasionally.” But is that really love or just kindness, or perhaps just tolerance? Paul Miller said, “I honestly don’t know how to love someone if I’m not praying for them. How did I learn that? By trying to love people when I wasn’t praying for them. Mess after mess. Frustration on top of frustration” (interview in byFaith magazine). How many of our neighbors are we actually praying for on a regular basis? Even family members and close friends tend to slip on and off our prayer lists depending on their immediate needs. If we don’t care enough about someone to pray for them frequently, are we really loving them as God has commanded? Prayer is just one measure of our love for our neighbor.

The final part of Matthew 22:38 is, “Love… yourself.” It’s not enough to profess love for God and neighbor, but we’re to love ourselves too. I read an illustration recently where a man said, “I’ve always heard that verse as ‘Love your neighbor but hate yourself,’ and I’ve done very well to fulfill the second part.” I’ve heard some preaching over the years that might lean toward that interpretation, telling people to always put others first. While that sounds like a godly thing to do, for those with low self-esteem (and I include myself in that group) it can be interpreted to mean that your own needs don’t matter, you aren’t important, and perhaps that God loves others more than He loves you. When that is the case, we have to learn to accept what God says is true of us: we are loved with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3); we belong to the Beloved and His desire is for us (Song of Solomon 7:10); we are His adopted children (Ephesians 1:5); and so many other words of truth! If God so loves me, then I am free to love myself as well. Jesuit Bernard Bush writes, “We cannot assume that [God] feels about us the way we feel about ourselves, unless we love ourselves intensely and freely.”

Only when I know and accept who I am in Christ can I begin to love others with the love that I have received from my heavenly Father. That is true love. Without that foundation, all my acts of love are generated from my own strength and are motivated by the changing feelings of fondness and appreciation. Whole-hearted love comes from a heart overflowing with the love of God. “I pray… that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:17-19). When we allow God’s love to fill our lives, that love is reflected back to Him in our daily choices and it’s reflected in our interactions with others. Only because of His love at work in us can we fulfill the commands to love God, love others, and love ourselves. Anything else is a faint imitation at best. Love is part of the Fruit of the Spirit, which means it can only be grown by the Holy Spirit at work in us. There’s nothing we can do to make that fruit grow except to abide in the Vine (Christ)—believing and accepting what He says to be true and letting Him transform our hearts and lives one day at a time.

While I write this from personal experience, you can be sure that I have a long way to go in the growth process! Just because you know something is true doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve worked it into your daily faith walk. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another… We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:11,19).

Now What?

Have you ever had the thought, perhaps just subconsciously, that now that I’m a Christian the big change is over and it’s just a straight road from here? I’ve been realizing more and more that that’s not how it works. We’re a little bit like parents who think that once their child is out of the house the work is done and there won’t be any more worries, needs, etc. Or for the young adult who has graduated and gotten a job, they may feel like “That’s done. Now I can get on with life.” So we get settled down in our work, church, home, and family and we don’t anticipate any major changes. When it comes to spirituality, we may get complacent and feel like it doesn’t make a great deal of difference if we pray, read the Bible, or go to church. We know we “should,” so we go through the routine. 

I’m finding that God doesn’t just save us to leave us alone to live our lives. Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Verse 22 continues, “In Him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” And chapter 4 goes on to tell us that these good works, this construction of God, is enabled by the spiritual gifts He has given each of us. So if we’ve got preordained works to do in order to build up the Body of Christ, why are so many of us content to sit back in the pew (or on the couch) relaxed and unconcerned about anything besides our own salvation? Why do we change the channel when the pictures of starving children in Africa come on? Are we afraid we might be compelled to do something about it? When someone asks for volunteers, why do we look away, afraid that if we make eye contact we’ll be drafted for something we don’t want to do?

I think there are several reasons for our complacency:

1) We are comfortable. Nobody likes to be uncomfortable, so we don’t want to do something new or risky. We don’t want to give up any of our abundance because that might make things uncomfortable down the road.

2) We are busy. We’ve got our own jobs and families to care for and worry about. We don’t want to or have time to take on anything else.

3) We don’t see the need. Whether it’s busyness or a lack of information, we don’t understand why someone else may need our help (financially, physically, emotionally, etc.). We all tend to be inward focused.

4) We don’t know what we can do. Even if we know there are people or groups in need in our neighborhood or around the world, we may not know how to help. We may feel inadequate for that particular need. We may be fearful of rejection. Or we may just need some guidance as to what to do and how to do it.

There are probably dozens of other reasons as well. As I’ve been doing some study on spiritual gifts lately, a few things have stood out in my mind. First, God has given the gifts that are needed for any particular time and place. He’s not going to leave us missing key pieces to accomplish His work. That leads to a couple questions—If we have a need (such as teachers), have we communicated the need to those who might have the gifts to contribute? And if we have asked for help and still have a need, are we sure we’re asking for the right thing or is there something we need to be doing differently?

Another thought is that the Body of Christ is the worldwide Church, not just our local congregation. So there are needs around the world that are being met in a variety of ways. There may be a church in Nigeria that can supply a need elsewhere in Africa. There may be a parachurch organization such as World Vision that can assist in places we’ve never even heard of. Many such organizations are worthy of our financial support. We aren’t all called to go overseas in our service for God. Denominational structures exist to help organize our efforts around the world, as well as in our own towns, conferences, and regions. What do we need to do to tap into the resources available to us, and what do we have to offer to those outside our congregation?

Third, I don’t think that most of us have a good understanding of spiritual gifts as opposed to learned abilities, interests, or talents. Even if you’ve gone through one or more “spiritual gift inventory” questionnaires, as I have, it’s still a pretty vague concept. Theologians seem to disagree on some of the key points as well. I had always been told that your spiritual gifts don’t change, but then I read Lloyd Ogilvie’s Enjoying God, in which he writes, “Often we speak of a person who has exercised one of the gifts consistently as one permanently gifted with that gift… This has two debilitating effects: it often keeps the person from being open to using other spiritual tools from the tool chest, and it can lead a person away from moment-by-moment dependence on the Holy Spirit… A further misapprehension is created by thinking of a particular calling in the church as a spiritual gift… A prophet has been called by God into an avenue of ministry. But this calling is not the same as a spiritual gift.” I have to say that just muddied the waters for me. I wish I had some answers, but for now I’m left with more questions.

Henry Blackaby writes in Experiencing God, “God will never give you an assignment that He will not, at the same time, enable you to complete. That is what a spiritual gift is—a supernatural empowering to accomplish the assignment God gives you. Don’t, however, focus on your talents, abilities, and interests in determining God’s will… When He is Lord, your response should be something like this: ‘Lord, I will do anything that Your kingdom requires of me. Wherever You want me to be, I’ll go. Whatever the circumstances, I’m willing to follow. If You want to meet a need through my life, I am Your servant; and I will do whatever is required.’” That seems to go along with Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me,” and John 15:5, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” Whatever God has called you to do He will enable you to accomplish. So then the question becomes, are we listening and looking to see what God might be inviting us to do?

Max Lucado includes the following prayer in Outlive Your Life, and it’s a good place for us to start. “O Lord, I have been called to be part of a holy community. You did not call me in isolation but placed me in the body of Christ, along with every other believer in Jesus throughout the world in every age. Let us grow as a team, work as a team, worship as a team, weep, laugh, and live as a team. Grant me the wisdom and the strength to partner with you and with my brothers and sisters in Christ. For Jesus’ sake and in his name I pray, amen.”

Unexplainable

I’ve encountered a similar thought in four different forms in the past couple weeks. The first was a quote from Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God, “Often sharing what God is doing in your life may help someone else encounter God in a meaningful way.” The second was from the sermon on Romans 15:18, “For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me,” and the question posed was “If we could put on our website only what God has done in and through us as a church or individuals, what would be on there?”

The third variation last night was from the video series Unexplainable by Don Cousins. He starts the series by asking, “What is happening in your life right now that is unexplainable except by the work of God?” And the fourth came today from a story in the book Enjoying God by Lloyd Ogilvie. He writes of a man who said, “I was one of those Christians who took great pride in my baptism by the Spirit. I loved to talk about the assurances and excitement I felt when the Spirit filled me. But I was living in the past…”

The question that arose in my mind from these four encounters was, “Am I (are we) just talking about what God has done in the past, or about what He is doing right now?” If we’re just rehearsing the past, why is that? Are we not aware of what God is doing now, or is He not doing anything we consider noteworthy? Are we hindering what He wants to do by not giving Him control? The series by Cousins shares a story of a man that I think most of us can identify with—he wanted to be in control of his life and be prepared for anything that might come. He had a good job, a healthy savings account, three kids, a house, and all the things that we strive for. But it was a ho-hum existence because he didn’t take any risks, and so there wasn’t any sign that God was doing something unexplainable in or through him.

Assuming that these four encounters aren’t just a coincidence, I thought I’d share a little about what God is doing in my life right now. I’d have to say I’ve been in the “safe but routine” boat for quite awhile, until God decided to rock the boat a bit. I don’t like uncertainty, surprises, or anything unusual. Having grown up moving from state to state every few years, I learned that the “safe” thing to do was to avoid relationships and just entertain myself. You can’t get hurt if you don’t let anyone get close, right? (Well, not exactly, because we always have some degree of relationships even if they are superficial. But that’s another story.) There are some other contributing factors that I won’t go into. After settling down here almost 16 years ago I’ve hardly even traveled except to visit family and a few necessary trips for work. No need to deal with airports, traffic, hotels, and all those uncertain situations, which are even more uncertain for a single woman traveling alone.

Then add on top of that a long history of depression and anxiety, and the “comfortable” boat gets pretty uncomfortable. Though I’ve been on medications of many varieties over the years, it became increasingly obvious that just treating the symptoms does not fix the real problem—isolation. I’ve written this a few times in my blog, mainly because I have to keep being reminded of the truth: God created us to live in community, not in isolation. From the beginning of creation we learn “It is not good for man to be alone.” This isn’t just talking about marriage, but about people in all of life. And when we deny God’s plan and try to be self-sufficient, it’s only a matter of time until darkness and depression come crashing down despite all our efforts to medicate it away. (That’s part of the reason for the rising epidemic of drug abuse and alcoholism.)

So things came to an apex (or perhaps nadir would be the better analogy) last fall. When the medical world continued to fail me I turned to counseling with my pastor. Though I’ve been in counseling before, the benefits were fairly short term. And as I’ve told a couple people, there’s a difference between a “professional” with all the degrees and expertise, and a discipler who walks alongside you with the love and grace of God (remember 1 Corinthians 13). And there’s a difference between someone who only knows what you tell them and someone who sees you in a variety of contexts. In case you haven’t found out yet, we have a pastor who is being gifted and used by God, and one who really means it when he says he loves us! (We love you too, Matt!)

To wrap this up, through godly counsel and encouragement, things are changing in my life. God has connected me with some good folks in our House 2 House Bible study; God has gotten me back in Sunday school; and God has involved me in some other events I would previously have avoided. God has also drawn me into closer relationship with Him through turning off the TV, reading some inspirational books, and listening to some good sermons and Bible studies. None of those are things I would naturally pursue on my own. And perhaps most amazing to me is that God gave me the faith to trust Him enough that I could stop taking some of my medications. I’m totally off the ones that I’d been prescribed last fall, and I’m down to ¼ of the prescribed dose of a medication I’ve been on since 1999. I would be off it completely except for the fact that I like to be able to sleep. Maybe someday I’ll be “drug free.” While I don’t recommend going against a doctor’s advice, it has worked out pretty well in this case. It hasn’t entirely been easy, but it is still worth it.

That’s the “unexplainable” that God has been up to in my life. How about you?

Enduring

I’ve been listening to a Bible study series called “Rebuilding Your Broken World” by Chip Ingram based on James 1. I don’t know about anyone else, but verses 2-4 aren’t exactly the encouraging word I want to hear most of the time: “Count in all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness [perseverance]. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” It would be nice if we were instead promised, “This trial is only temporary, and pretty soon you’ll be past it and things will look brighter.” Unfortunately, Scripture doesn’t promise us short, easily endured trials. But we do have the assurance that our faith will be strengthened if we learn to rely on God in the midst of the trials.

James 1:5 is a verse I tend to overlook most of the time. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Ingram points out four basic steps here: 1) Admit that you’re stuck, 2) Confess that you can’t do it on your own, 3) Ask God for His supernatural wisdom, and 4) Commit to do what He tells you to do. As James explains in verses 6-8, it doesn’t do you any good to ask for God’s wisdom if you have little or no intention of accepting it. You have to align your purpose with God’s, and follow Him single-mindedly.

Ingram points out that one of the reasons we tend not to ask God for wisdom is that we are afraid what He might tell us and that He might condemn us for bad choices we’ve made and lecture us on everything we’ve done wrong. But this verse says He gives “without reproach.” It’s the difference between a child who comes crying and confessing that he broke the cookie jar and the child who arrogantly denies having been anywhere near it. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).

The other issue with pride is that we never get to the point of admitting we can’t do it on our own. And even if we do realize we need help, we tend to turn to anyone and anything else before turning to God. Sure, there is a lot of good, and even godly, wisdom out there that may be helpful, but it’s easy to start relying on that without giving much thought to the Source of all wisdom. As James writes a few verses later, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…” (v. 17). I suspect that a lot of our trials come from our prideful self-sufficiency. God doesn’t generally use vessels that refuse to submit to His purposes, so brokenness is in order.

Some of the questions Ingram asks are ones that I’ve had to ask myself. Does my faith look beyond my present circumstances to that which is permanent and imperishable? Is my focus on my problems or on God’s promises and hope for the future? And is my motivation to find relief or to love God and others no matter what? He states, “Painful and difficult trials provide opportunity for us to express our love to Jesus.” Even if we are not necessarily suffering for Christ (i.e. persecution), we have a choice to either suffer with Him or without Him. If we choose to go through it with Him, we can be vessels of faith, hope and love in a fallen world. Even if we don’t find relief from our trials in this lifetime, our lives will be enriched by our relationship with God and with the people He puts in our path.

“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him” (v. 12). May that be the encouragement we need when the trials come!

I Delight in You

I’ve been thinking lately about Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Have you ever thought about God delighting in you? That’s hard for me to comprehend. Yeah, I know God loves me, but so what? You mean He actually delights in me?! I can’t imagine why. But for whatever reason, God doesn’t just love me, He likes me. And He doesn’t just like me, He delights in me.

J.I. Packer writes in Knowing God, “There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see (and am I glad!), and that he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose.”

I think that we tend to forget that salvation comes to us because of God’s love and delight. He didn’t just take pity on us poor defenseless creatures, like we might pity the kitten that shows up on our doorstep. God is love, and love can’t be self-contained. His love overflows to the people He created in His image. Larry Crabb writes in Connecting, “Nothing is more fundamental to appreciating the essence of Christian living than to ponder the implications of a central but often neglected truth: We have all been created by an Eternal Community of three fully connected persons. When we’re told that we bear God’s image, we immediately know two things: 1. We were designed to connect with others... 2. Connecting with others depends on using our capacity to relate for the enjoyment and enhancement of someone other than ourselves."

I really enjoyed reading Connecting. It struck a chord in me that reminded me that we not only need to experience God’s delight in us, but we need relationships with people who delight in us as well. The church should be a place where that happens regularly, and yet it often doesn’t. Far too many people come to church once a week (or more), but fail to have any kind of meaningful relationships that reach outside the walls of that building. I desire to have at least a few relationships with people who know me and who delight in me for who I am, not for what I do. That kind of intimacy is possible because of the life of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit in us. Paul wrote, “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you” (1 Thess. 3:12). I haven’t seen that kind of abundant love in many churches, and perhaps just small pockets in many other churches.

If the local assembly of the Body of Christ were fully united and working together in the abundant love of Christ, I’m sure there would be no problem attracting new believers and new members. As I’ve shared with a couple people, true community has a healing power that is largely untapped as we settle for superficial imitations most of the time. Certain people have an ability to touch lives more deeply because they willingly invest themselves in the people around them. My own experience has made this clearer to me lately, and I would love to see that multiplied in other lives.

One of the illustrations in Connecting keeps coming back to me. Brennan Manning would regularly meet with an older man, and each time they got spotted each other at their meeting place, the man would jump up and down with delight saying, “There’s Brennan!” Later, Brennan gave the same kind of reception to Larry Crabb, and it filled him with joy. Are there those people who delight in us and jump up and down (either literally or figuratively) when they see us? Some parents are welcomed home each day by the delight of their young children. But are there others who know us intimately and love us anyway? Have we ever taken the risk of letting someone get that close to begin with?

I’m beginning to experience the truth of 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…” Even imperfect love can begin to break down the walls of fear, and love seems to expand to overflow whatever space it’s given. At little love goes a long way. I keep thinking of Lilo & Stitch. Experiment 626, who was created to destroy everything he sees, is adopted, named Stitch, loved in spite of his aggressive nature, and he begins to transform and reform. And by the end of the movie he realizes he has a family that loves him and he doesn’t want to leave. While it’s a cute kids’ story, I wonder whether we aren’t all longing for that kind of love: a love that fights for us even when we aren’t worth fighting for, and a family that sticks together even when some members are broken, wounded, and weak.

So I’ll leave you with two thoughts today: 1) God delights in you and me, no matter how unfathomable that may seem, and 2) because of the transforming power of God’s love we can love and delight in one another.

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” -Psalm 37:4