Random Thoughts

(June 23, 2020)

This time of year always makes me a bit nostalgic. This past Sunday would have been my Dad’s 87^th birthday, and Father’s Day—the day we set aside to honor our fathers—is just around the corner. So, aside from missing my Dad, which is still the case despite the fact that he departed this life more than 25 years ago, I also miss the opportunity to celebrate him, to give him some special gifts that I spent months planning. In his physical absence, however, I still honor and celebrate him, and I always think the best way to celebrate and honor him (both of my parents, actually), and the best gift I can give him (them), is a life well-lived, a life that exudes the values he instilled in me, a life of character, of integrity, of generosity, of compassion, and of love.  I wish I could say that I never have faltered, that I never fell short of one or more of these values.  The truth is, I often fall short. The important thing, as my Dad always told me, is to keep moving forward. No matter what is going on around you, no matter what other people are doing, keep your eyes on the prize and keep pushing forward.

The values my earthly father taught me also happen to be the same values, the same truths, that our Heavenly Father calls us—each of us, individually, and all of us, collectively—to uphold.

LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD / LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

Mark 12:29b-31 (AMP):²⁹ Jesus answered, “The first and most important one is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; ³⁰ and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul (life), and with all your mind (thought, understanding), and with all your strength.’ ³¹ This is the second: ‘You shall [unselfishly] ^[a]love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Matt 22:35-40 (AMP):³⁵ One of them, a lawyer [an expert in Mosaic Law], asked Jesus a question, to test Him: ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” ³⁷ And Jesus replied to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’ ⁴⁰ The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Luke 10:25-28 (AMP): ²⁵ And a certain lawyer [an expert in Mosaic Law] stood up to test Him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” ²⁷ And he replied, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this habitually and you will live.” (After this, the lawyer asks Jesus “who is my neighbor,” and Jesus goes on to tell the Parable of Good Samaritan. And in v. 36, Jesus asks, “³⁶ Which of these three do you think proved himself a neighbor to the man who encountered the robbers?” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who showed compassion and mercy to him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and constantly do the same.”

These scriptures go beyond my sister/brother, but this evening I want to focus on the family—you and me, the body of Christ.  God calls us to LOVE Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The key to understanding this in the scriptures we’ve read is to know that this love (this agape) is not a matter of emotion or sentiment. Rather, it is focused on that which benefits or favors “the other.” That is, we are called to have an unselfish concern for and a willingness to seek the best or higher good for an “other.”  If you’re wondering who the “other” is, it’s not you!  In terms of loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, it is a love that is willful, sacrificial, and intentional.

Agape is the type of love that our Heavenly Father has for humankind, for us, His children, and it is the type of love that He calls us to have for Him and for one another.  It is the willful, sacrificial love that intentionally desires another’s highest good. While the etymology of the word doesn’t quite lead us there, I like to think of it as akin to the English word “agape” (wide open), which itself stems from an old English word meaning “gap” or “chasm.”  So, when we talk about God having an agape (Greek) love for humankind, it is a WIDE OPEN love that willfully, sacrificially, and intentionally desires our highest good, that stands in the gap for us, that bridges the chasm between Him and us. I want you to take a moment to think of another believer you perceive as vastly different from yourself, someone who, apart from professing fellowship with Christ, doesn’t think like you, act like you, talk like you. With that person (or those people) in mind, since this is the same type of love that Our Father calls us to have one for another, “Are you willing to bridge the chasm, to stand in the gap, for that person? Is that person’s highest good your aim, your goal? Do you willfully, sacrificially, intentionally seek his/her highest good?  Do you constantly, habitually show compassion and mercy toward him/her? Is his healing, her prosperity, their integrity your goal? Do you love him/her with a WIDE OPEN love?

If we’re honest with ourselves, I think we all can say that we fall short, but praise God that conviction, admonition, correction never comes without grace and mercy.  God always gives us the opportunity to dust ourselves off, correct our course, reset our eyes on the prize, and then push forward. We cannot accomplish any of it, however, unless we truly are ONE as God calls us to be.

GOD CALLS US TO BE ONE

This probably is true of many families, but in some segments of my family, there always seems to be some level of bickering. This one’s not talking to that one, or that one’s not talking to this one, but in spite of that, one thing remains true.  When one of them is in need, they all lay down their differences and RUN, not walk, to SELFLESSLY help the one(s) in need. Why? Because despite their differences, they have been taught and recognize the importance and value of family, and each of them understands that taking care of each other is both their duty and their privilege. They honor their parents and each other by having each other’s backs.

In John 17:20, Jesus prays: ²⁰ “I do not pray for these alone [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but also for [all] those who [will ever] believe and trust in Me through their message, ²¹ that they all may be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be one in Us, so that the world may believe [without any doubt] that You sent Me.

Continuing in vv. 22-24: ²² I have given to them the glory [doxan]and honor which You have given Me, that they may be one, just as We are one; ²³ I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected and completed [Gr: perfected in unity; teteleiomenoi] into one, so that the world may know [without any doubt] that You sent Me, and [that You] have loved them, just as You have loved Me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given to Me [as Your gift to Me], may be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

Two things:

1. It is our Heavenly Father’s desire/goal/intent that we, His children, be perfected in unity into One (go back to Matt 22:37: “And Jesus replied to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’…”  The “You” here is both the individual you and the collective (or UNIFIED) you. = me and you, and US = the Body of Christ = the Church!).  God calls us to be “perfected in unity” so that the world may know (a) that Jesus was sent by God; and (b) that God loves humankind just as He loves Jesus.

Jesus prayed for all who believed and trusted, and all who would ever believe and trust, in Him (a) to be one as He and the Father are One, and (b) to be One with Jesus and our Heavenly Father. But He doesn’t call us to be One only so that we can share in His inheritance, so that we can be with them in eternity.  He calls us to be One SO THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE [WITHOUT A DOUBT] that Jesus was sent by God! In true God-fashion, He calls us to do something for the benefit of others, i.e., for others’ highest good!

2. Only through the power of God through the working of the Holy Spirit, only the Jesus in us, can accomplish this unity or oneness. Apart from Him, we cannot accomplish it.
   • 1 Cor 12:12-13a: “For just as the body is one and yet has many parts, and all the parts, though many, form [only] one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For by one [Holy] Spirit we were all baptized into one body, [spiritually transformed—united together]…”
   • 1Cor 12:18, 24b-27: ¹⁸ But now [as things really are], God has placed and arranged the parts in the body, each one of them, just as He willed and saw fit [with the best balance of function]. ^24b But God has combined the [whole] body, …²⁵ so that there would be no division or discord in the body [that is, lack of adaptation of the parts to each other], but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. ²⁶ And if one member suffers, all the parts share the suffering; if one member is honored, all rejoice with it.²⁷ Now you [collectively] are Christ’s body, and individually [you are] members of it [each with his own special purpose and function].

Without devoting much time to it, I don’t want to completely skip over the fact that John 17:24 says that we are the Father’s gift to Jesus. Elsewhere, scripture refers to us as the bride of Christ.  Imagine receiving a gift with mismatched pieces and pieces that, minimally, don’t work well together? This is entirely NOT what our Father intended.

Our Father calls us to be ONE and to love one another as ourselves, to selflessly put our brothers’ and sisters’ needs ahead of our own.  If you’re as selfish as I sometimes am, you might be thinking, “What about me? What about MY needs? Who’s looking out for me?”  Once upon a time, I asked God this very question.  Bone tired of giving my all to ensure everyone else’s needs were met, putting aside my emotions of feeling like others ignored my needs, feeling like others had come to feel like they DESERVED my all, I asked God, “What about me?  Who’s going to look out for me?” and as plain as day, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “Just keep doing what you’re doing. You let ME worry about you.” Letting God figure out meeting my needs doesn’t mean that I sit around and do nothing. Rather, it means that I can prefer my brother’s needs, my sister’s needs in love without worrying that my needs will go unmet.

If my sisters and brothers in Christ also are seeking my highest good, I shouldn’t have to worry about that, but the reality is that sometimes we, the collective Body of Christ, can’t even love our own selves well enough to get to the point of loving our neighbor the way we’re called to love them. At the same time, in some ways, we ARE demonstrating loving others precisely as we love ourselves, because we, the collective Body of Christ, are not truly perfected in unity, and if we are not perfected in unity, do we truly LOVE one another, and if we do not truly love one another, do we truly love our Father?

1 John 4:20: “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates (works against) his [Christian] brother he is a liar; for the one who does not love [selflessly seek the highest good of] his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

In Matthew 5:43-45, Jesus tells us to love (selfishly seek the best/higher good for) our enemies so that we may show ourselves to be the children of our Father in Heaven!  What good does it do if we love only those who love us? No, our Father calls us higher, but we can’t reach that higher plane without the power of God through the working of the Holy Spirit, without Jesus in us!

1 Cor 13:1-3 – If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not ^[a]love [for others growing out of God’s love for me], then I have become only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal [just an annoying distraction]. ² And if I have the gift of prophecy [and speak a new message from God to the people], and understand all mysteries, and [possess] all knowledge; and if I have all [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love [reaching out to others], I am nothing. ³ If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body ^[b]to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good at all.

When my older brother and I were little, whenever we were caught fighting or arguing, our Mom used to make us “kiss and make up.”  We HATED it, but we did it because we had no choice (our mother was going to halt everything until we did it) and because we are family. 

In some ways, we, the Body of Christ, need to kiss and make up! If we are called to be One—perfected in unity—then we’d better get about the business of figuring out how to love one another as our Heavenly Father intends. We have only to think about the way the world views and portrays the church currently. If God purposed for His church to be One with Him and He purposed it partially “so that the world may know [without any doubt] that” Jesus was sent by the Father and that the Father loves them as He loves Jesus, then we have work to do. But we can get there, because the Word of God says it is God’s desire and intent. Let us press in and implore the Holy Spirit to accomplish the Father’s purposes in us, and as we do, let us not stand idly by but rather commit ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, guidance, leading, and healing, and let us honor our Heavenly Father in so doing.

1 Cor 13:13 ¹³ And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.