Don’t confuse God’s love and grace with His delight.
You can have the former, which is unmerited, but still miss the latter, which comes from doing His will and obeying His commands.
Category Archives: Love
Hanging On – Part 2
Are we living up to God’s plan for His body? What is His plan for His body? Are we all heart? Are we all head?
I believe a spider web exemplifies the body of Christ. A spider web is both beautiful and useful, but also very complex. The spider’s silk has the unique ability to become softer or stiffer depending on the stress the web receives. It is not stagnant but active. God so designed the spider’s web that when one strand breaks, the strength of the entire web actually increases.
God desires the same for His church. There are times when a situation requires softness and the “web” needs to reach out and actively demonstrate that attribute. In contrast, sometimes the body needs to show stiffness and resolve, so rushing to the rescue might not be the best answer.
Love in Action
You tell me how in Christ love is everything.
How it transcends morality, truth and even scripture itself…
How if we just expressed your concept of love, the world will beat a path to Jesus…
Yet you recoil at basic truth, like the reality of sin and moral precepts.
And you reject much that God has revealed in His Word to help us understand His own nature and thus the parameters of authentic love – for the good not just of individuals, but whole societies.
Somehow, you have been deceived into thinking that authentic love is freedom from truth, when actually it is truth set free.
Another Great Wedding
This afternoon, Marianne and I are hosting an outdoor wedding by our pool for a couple in one of our fellowships.
One of my greatest delights is seeing God redeem lives, and being part of that process – especially when it comes to performing weddings for men I’ve mentored in the Lord.
The groom is someone I got to know while he was in jail, where I helped introduce him to Jesus. Since his release several years ago, I’ve had the privilege of continuing to walk with him as he’s learned to let the Lord put his life back together.
There were some hard stretches, like when he ended up living in the woods, homeless, for several months while God burned some unhealthy attitudes out of him. Some would have rushed out in “mercy” to save him from that fate, but I knew that it was what the Lord wanted. So rather than “save” him from being homeless, I drove him to the store to pick out a tarp for his tent, then dropped him off at the homeless “community” behind the local K-Mart.
Rather than run from what the Lord was doing in his life, he manned up to his issues and let God do His sovereign work of transformation. I was privileged to be there for him as an older brother in the faith, and to help him during that difficult time go to those places in his life where he finally got real and allowed the Lord to bring healing.
Since then, he’s been on a fascinating journey as he’s been developing his own successful business. I’ve had the privilege of helping as a trusted counselor, based on my own entrepreneurial background. In fact, he was the subject of a TV program that was broadcast last year on several local stations about some of what we do in our fellowships to mentor folks – including business.
Since then, he has grown greatly in the Lord and is one of those brothers who is always there when someone needs help.
God delights in bringing beauty from ashes. Today, we celebrate yet another step in yet another man’s journey as he continues to grow in the authentic life in Christ – along with is wonderful bride.
As I perform the wedding, I will share about what marriage is about – as God created and ordained it. As we see the institution of marriage assaulted on all sides, maybe we need to re-affirm these principles.
So here’s part of my “pastoral” charge for the new couple:
“In Genesis 1, Scripture tells us that God created humanity in His likeness and image. I believe He did this by putting His essentially masculine qualities into men, and putting those aspects of His nature that are more feminine, into women. That’s why, I believe, the Bible says He created us as male and female.
“He then ordained the institution of marriage, which represents the coming together of those masculine and feminine qualities so that we, in marriage, can reflect the completeness of His own nature – in unity of purpose, in the security of lifelong fidelity, and in the bonds of joyful, sacrificial love.
“The challenge, and the delight, of marriage is learning to honor and esteem those essential differences that we possess as husband and wife …”
To Oscar and Nicole, may the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.
May the Lord turn His countenance upon you and give you peace.
~ Jim
Postscript:
Yesterday’s wedding of Oscar and Nicole was one of the most amazingly joyous celebrations we’ve ever had the pleasure of hosting at our house. Life was breaking out all over. And the dancing as awesome.
Marianne and I want to thank everyone who came for your help. It was the Body of Christ – and community – in all it’s glory.
The way everyone pitched in, especially when we had to figure out at the last hour how to move everything indoors due to the rain, was a blessing beyond measure. We totally enjoyed ourselves – which is something hosts can’t often say.
Again, thanks!
Here’s a couple of pictures. We Christian’s sure know how to have some fun! 🙂
The bride, groom and friends joyously celebrating. And that woman in the red dress? She and her husband spent time doing pre-marriage counseling and are leaders in our churches. Yup. She’s dancing! (Oh, the scandal!)
Oscar and Nicole, on the left. The second couple married two years ago and now have a family, and he too has been a spiritual son. Their lives also are a testament to how God brings beauty from ashes.
Sufficient Grace, Part II
As my close friends know, for the last seven years I’ve been dealing with a rare autoimmune condition called scleroderma (also known as systemic sclerosis).
Recent medical tests indicate that it is now impairing my lungs. This is a progressively debilitating and likely fatal development, and there is no known cure. I was not surprised by the latest test results, as I’ve been feeling my health deteriorate more rapidly over the last several months.
I’m posting this to be transparent and so none of my friends feel blindsided. I am totally open about what’s happening, and not bashful over it, so don’t feel you have to ignore it when you’re around me. If you have questions or want to just talk about it, feel free!
However, I also do not want it to define me. My life has been, and will continue to be, about so much more than this disease!
A Multilingual Jesus
God speaks to some subjectively, and to others objectively, and each often forgets that Jesus is multilingual. Regardless, His subjective love is rooted in objective truth, and He never limits Himself to just one or the other.
When we become so focused on one, to the exclusion of the other, we are not really relating to a complete Jesus. Rather, we often are seeking self affirmation – a Jesus who simply relates to us on our own terms and within the confines of our own comfort zones.
We need each other in the context of the whole Body of Christ if we truly want Jesus as our wonderful and multifaceted Lord and savior – who then transcends our individual limitations.
As I work with fellowships and minister to individuals, I see that an overly subjective perspective (or, if you prefer, “heart” and feelings) eventually becomes mired in unhealthy sentimentality.
Those, however, who are overly objective (“mind” and logic) eventually become mired in a dry impersonality.
When we together find both the subjective and the objective Jesus, however, we find mature health.
Different Spiritual Languages
Each of us will naturally tend to speak in our own God-given spiritual language of the heart or of the mind, and that’s as it should be. But we nonetheless need each other.
In my own life, God has given me a wonderful wife who relates to God very subjectively. He speaks to her through feelings, while I, on the other hand, hear God very logically and rationally.
When we started dating, we almost didn’t make it because I thought my spiritual language was superior to her’s. I kept insisting that she communicate with me about the Lord in my own language.
She, in turn, couldn’t understand that relating to Jesus through my logic and reason, and my need to figure things out, was just as intensely personal and intimate as her way – even though it was very different.
Where she primarily felt the subjective heart of Jesus, I primarily pursued the objective wonder of Jesus – with very different spiritual languages that matched our different natures.
Several months after we started dating, she broke up with me – through my own fault – because of those differences. But the Lord used our time apart to teach us to honor and value our differences, and to start learning to become bilingual.
For me, it was gut wrenching – literally and figuratively! When the Lord finally allowed me to “figure” out what I had done – by not accepting the validity of how God spoke to her and related to her and thinking my way was superior – I was deeply humbled and I asked her to forgive me. Fortunately, she did!
For the subjective “feelers” among us, though, don’t start cheering because your side won! Trust me, I’ve seen too many instances where insisting that everything is about subjective, relational feelings is just as tyrannical and abusive (often in a seemingly sweet but passive-aggressive way) as insisting that Jesus is only about objective truth. Health and maturity in Christ comes through us learning to hear from, and value, each other.
God speaks things that you need to hear, but won’t hear, except through those who’s spiritual language resonates with His objective nature. Likewise, you will hear things that I won’t hear unless I affirm your subjectivity. And when my objectivity finds unity with your subjectivity, we experience Jesus more fully.
Now that we are married, my wife and I laugh over our very different ways of hearing from, and speaking to, the Lord. But we both know, at the core of our beings, that the other’s spiritual language is just as valid and profound as our own. And when Jesus speaks to my wife via subjective feelings, I listen! Likewise, she listens when Jesus speaks to my logic and reason.
You see, the Lord primarily relates to her in a beautiful language of subjective love and feeling. With me, it is through the wonder of objectively understanding Him and His creation.
Yes, I can be subjective and passionate, but the fact remains that Jesus gave me a very different spiritual language than my wife. And yes, she has logic and reason, but that’s not her primary spiritual language. Yet those differences are fascinating, and we complete each other!
Healthy Communities
Like in a marriage, a healthy community of believers must learn to understand and value each other’s different spiritual languages. Only as we develop the ability to truly hear and appreciate one another, and not be threatened or express impatience towards what often seems so “other” and foreign, will we experience all of Jesus – through each other!
Too often, I fear, we turn “church” into isolated enclaves of sameness, where we retreat into our mutually-affirming comfort zones by seeking to related only to those who speak our own spiritual language.
Only as we affirm the different multilingual voices of God in each of us, is He wholly expressed among all of us.
I thank God that I found this in my marriage, and in a fellowship of diverse brothers and sisters who value the fact that Jesus is multilingual.
I Am Content
Marianne Wright
I’ve advised Presidents and heads of state,
And ministered forgiveness
To murderers and inmates,
In Your name.
I’ve been rich,
But know poverty.
I’ve plowed the earth
And wiped sweaty dirt from my face,
Yet poked holes in clouds.
I’ve seen the world,
Stood firm against oppression,
And dodged its secret police,
While dancing with gypsies.
I’ve changed laws
And the course of nations,
While counting the homeless
Among my closest friends.
I’ve led the march of thousands,
And brought stadiums to their feet,
Yet walked with death and a cane.
I fought the mob and won,
And quietly saved my daughters
From their threats,
Yet been broken and used up.
I’ve known the joy of hopeless battles won,
And the brotherhood of warriors brave,
Yet cried alone before their graves.
I’ve spoken truth to power,
Hugged the brokenhearted,
And helped set the captive set free.
For all these things, Lord, I am grateful;
It’s been a life well lived.
But most of all,
I thank You that love did not pass me by:
For the joy of Marianne’s embrace
And the wonders of her grace,
I am content.
~ Jim Wright
Related articles
- Contentment (crossroadjunction.com)
- Love (crossroadjunction.com)
Grace, Mercy and Love
Unless we know truth …
… we cannot bestow grace.
Unless we judge …
… we can show no mercy.
Unless we hate evil …
… we cannot love.
Does Anybody Hear Her?
This made me weep.
“Judgement looms under every steeple,
with lofty glances from lofty people.”
The Buffers Between Us
I was in prison and you thought how nice it was that your pastor held a weekly Bible study in the local jail…
I was naked and tattered and you remembered you needed to drop some old clothes off at Goodwill and get a tax receipt…
I was sick and you were grateful for public health clinics…
Joy and Gratitude
Marianne
Today I marry a woman whom I love more deeply than I ever thought possible.
The possibility of spending my life with someone who can love and receive love seemed impossible. But the Lord shows mercy to those who trust Him, by turning evil to good and creating beauty from ashes.
To love someone who in turn is able to truly love and truly be loved is a wonderful gift.
My joy and my gratitude are unbounded.
Helping or Enabling?
It’s hard cut lose a man you’ve been ministering to and let him ultimately bear the full consequences of the mess he’s made of his
life – not to hurt him, but to let him finally hit bottom.
I am friends with and minister to men and women who most people, and many churches, shun (except for arms-length “programs”, if even that). Pick a vice – any vice – and I’ve likely come beside and embraced those in bondage to it: former drug addicts, narc dealers, sex offenders, embezzlers, thieves, gender benders, Satanic ritual abusers and even murderers.
Because I’ve been willing to see past the sin and accept the common humanity we all share – not as one who is perfect but as a someone willing to walk with them as we sort out our individual imperfections together under God’s mercy and grace – some of these folk are now following the Lord.
I love such people, because daily I see how God creates beauty out of their ashes.
I am blessed, because I serve a God who, above all, creates. He takes destruction – what has become void and without form, in the words of Genesis 1 – and brings wonder and life and order. . .
. . . and He delights most of all, I’ve found, in redeeming lives that many think are beyond hope.
The Gospel vs. Religion
Tim Keller, an author (The Reason for God, Counterfeit Gods and Prodigal God) whom I have come to deeply respect (and who also happened to attended Westminster Theological Seminary — although I don’t recall that we knew each other), developed this list comparing the Gospel to Religion.
It’s a good focus for prayerful meditation as we each come before the Throne of Grace and let the Lord change our perspective. Only by letting Him change our perspective — the way we think and believe and react — can we be transformed into the men and women He lovingly calls us to be.
Ken Hornby (1945 – 2010)
Kenneth Lewis Hornby — a pastor, mentor, mutual confidant, fishing partner, flying buddy and friend who was closer than a brother — died early this morning after an extended battle with cancer.
Ken and his wife, Mary Lou, loved to go flying in my plane
Although he was my best friend, Ken and I had a relationship that transcended mere friendship.
We were so opposite, but so complementary, that it was sometimes scary how God nonetheless knit us together. Ken taught me heart, while I taught him rock. We irrevocably changed each other.
Last summer, I felt the Lord gently tell me that Ken was going to die. When we met a couple of days later for breakfast, Ken on his own initiative – and without me mentioning anything – said God showed him in a recent dream to prepare for an prolonged, painful death.
I knew in my spirit that Ken was right. As we continued to talk that morning about his own inner – and very human – struggles, I quietly resolved to be a pillar of support for him in the coming months.
Although Ken had previously battled cancer, including two major surgeries, his long-term prospects until then had been hopeful.
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