Part of God's calling on my life has been, and remains, getting at the root of beliefs.
The best book I've read, so far this year, does just this.
Part of God's calling on my life has been, and remains, getting at the root of beliefs.
The best book I've read, so far this year, does just this.
(I am re-posting this for a friend.)
For followers of Jesus, love is great. But love is not the greatest. First Corinthians 13 tells us that love is the greatest, among faith and hope. In the great triumvirate of faith, hope, and love, love takes first place.
As mighty as love is, love is not a thing. It is not a substance. It is not an entity. Love is not an object, nor is it a being, or a person. Therefore, love is not to be worshiped, since it is irrational to worship non-entities, be they physical or non-physical.
Love is a multi-faceted verb, manifesting itself in actions we call "loving," such as patience, kindness, gentleness, not easily angered, protective, trusting, and so on. While 1 Corinthians 13 appears to reify love, that's just a rhetorical device to elevate the behaviors associated with love. Love acts in certain ways, and does not act in certain other ways.
When the Bible says God is love, it is telling us that love is an essential attribute of the being of God. As an attribute of God, love is not to be worshiped. We don't worship attributes. Let's say, for example, that one of my attributes is weighs 170 pounds. (I wish this was true!) While weighs 170 pounds would be commendable, this attribute is not an entity or a substance which, in itself, is praiseworthy. We wouldn't expect someone, unless they are mentally incapacitated, to bow down and worship weighs 170 pounds.
Don't reify love. It's misleading, and false, to do that.
Don't bow before love and worship a verb.
Worship God who, in his being, is love.
(On the west side of Michigan, Lake Michigan shoreline) |
(Downtown Monroe) |
COMMUNICATION
AS SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE (CARING + CONFRONTING)
Ephesians 4:15 says: “therefore speak the truth in love; so shall
we fully grow up into Christ.” Here we are told, in communication, to be both
loving and truthful, caring and confronting.
Work at communicating both caring and confronting in the middle of marital or relational conflict.
Here are the attitudes to have and hold to.
From David Augsburger, Caring Enough to Confront
Card, in a store in Detroit's Cass Corridor |
(Ann Arbor) |
When I was a pastor in Joliet, Illinois, there was a man who was always with us on Sunday mornings. He was handicapped. He lived alone. He walked, so slowly, to the church building every Sunday morning. I mean every. No matter what the weather conditions. My thought was, “This man is committed!”
Linda and I are committed. This is nothing to boast about. This is basic discipleship. When we were growing up, our families were there on every Sunday morning. We never missed. Sunday is the Christian disciple’s Sabbath.
One of the Ten Commandments says, Remember the Sabbath day, and be there.
Keep it holy.
My parents did. The DNA of Sabbath-keeping became my DNA.
Linda’s parents did the same with their children. Linda’s dad and mom were on fire for Jesus! Missing the weekly gathering of the people, the church, was unthinkable for them. It formed the center of their born-again life. As it says in Hebrews,
Do not give up meeting together,
as some are in the habit of doing,
but encouraging one another
— and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Real disciples are in community. In “fellowship.” So much of what Jesus has taught me about being like Him has been learned in community.
The letters of Paul are not addressed to individual Christians. They are addressed to Jesus-Communities. Nearly every time the word “you” is used in Paul’s letters, it is plural.
The precious manifestations of the Holy Spirit (the “gifts”) only make sense within The Community.
Jesus taught me that the Bible is a tribal document. He is building his Tribe out of all kinds of people.
I need The Community.
The Community needs me.
We ARE the Church.
(From my book 31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship)
(Jerusalem street) |