What's love got to do with it?

             Tina Turner made this a phrase that sticks to your mind when she recorded that phrase so many years ago calling it a “second hand emotion.”  I think we all know love is anything but second hand. Jesus taught it was the symbol by which others would know we are his disciples.

³⁴ “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 HCSB

Paul writing to the Galatians:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control.” Galatians 5:22-23 HCSB

He lists love as the first fruit of a believer. It is the evidence of the Holy Spirit within. In our culture it is easy to say we love something. The word gets thrown around in such ways that we disregard the word and look for the act and action. We love food, shoes, friends, colors, comments, organizations you name it we love it. But do we? Love is word but not a word alone. Love is action. Action will reveal what we truly love.

If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 HCSB

Yet action without love is empty and pointless. We can have the right motive and do the wrong thing and end up doing nothing. Any one in a relationship knows how that works or doesn’t work. We can do the right thing but without the right heart we have done nothing.

What’s love got to do with it? Well…everything. Our actions reveal where our heart is. They reveal what we truly love and cherish. In a conversation on the radio this week the DJ spoke of going to heaven but not wanting to go yet. He felt ashamed of his thoughts but they were true and real. That may be a love question. What do we love? Love has everything to do with everything. Our actions reveal what we love. Do we love ourselves or our savior? It is a daily question whether or not we are dead to self and alive with Christ or are we alive to self and…love has got everything to do with it!        

    

In HIS Service and Yours

Bro G

What about your margins?

                When you look at the printed page you never notice them but they are there holding everything in place with nothing within. They are called margins. They are there to provide space and contrast to offset the other content of the page. Margins direct our attention to what is important. They provide that unobstructed space to perfect our doodling gift with various writing instruments.

                I began reading a leadership book the other day and the first “chapter” was regarding margins. Just like a document needs margins our lives need margins. By that I mean time and space filled with nothing in particular. Places where you have the freedom to doodle with activities or unexpected turns or adventures of life. Times where God can speak because you are listening for him in the quiet and still with the electronic devices off (yes, they can be turned off). That work e-mail can wait until tomorrow.

                 One evening as I was sharing this subject a friend told how she wrote in the margins in one direction and then to maximize content then wrote in the same margins perpendicular to the direction of the original writing. Maybe something like to the left.

I had never thought of doing that. One, I write big and when in a hurry in such a way as to be unable to read later in just one direction. Two, writing at an angle to my original would probably create an “angel language.” I would be writing in tongues and there would be no interpreter because neither I nor anyone else would be able to read it.

                We do this to our lives as we schedule so many things so tightly that there is no room for an emergency or fun. That happens so easily. There are so many “good” things to do. Ball, dance, sports, Zumba, Scouts, church the list can go on and on. Then there are friends and family. Not to mention, opportunities at work and for work, all of these are “good.” The hardest thing is choosing the “best” from the “better” choices. Bad or good is a cake walk compared to better and best. We have to consider the consequences both in the near term as well as the long term for our choices. Too often we choose the good for now and fail to consider the best for later.

                Consider your life for a moment. How much margin do you have in your life? Is there enough time for God to direct you in an unexpected way? Are there enough funds to meet yours and another’s need? Are you there with your family, spouse regularly? Are there margins for the best things, the GOD things? It means we have to choose and live with the consequences. Ask God for the BEST choice. He will tell you and not in the margin.

In HIS Service and Yours
 Bro G

Crossroads Church Easter 2015!

Saturday afternoon I thought the day might be special. Little did I know how special it would be? We all like to be a part of a big crowd. There is an energy and excitement that comes from a group of people gathered in one place and Sunday was that with at last count 124 in attendance. That is close to a record in the Tabernacle on Easter Sunday.

The day included my greatest honor of baptizing four precious children of God Brandy Ellis, Jami Bassett, Joshua Bassett and JD Barnes. Their public profession of faith in Jesus as their Savior and Lord. That is a delight no matter how wet I get. My shirt was wet but not near like my pants from the knee down. My pants and shirt were dry by the end of the service. However, I think my shoes are still drying. Now is the time for us who witnessed their declaration to step up, pray for and walk with them in this new path following Jesus as disciples. They have just started!

In the one service we shared the four symbols of our faith. Baptism, Lord's Supper, Cross and the Empty Tomb all in the same package. It has not been often that I have considered all four in the same service. They are the package. The symbols of our faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord. They are not our faith or our salvation they are symbols. Powerful and problematic as they challenge us once again to consider who Jesus was and is to us. The bow of the package is the Empty Tomb. It alone proves His words true. It brings hope to dark troubled lives if we believe. All of creation had been groaning for relief from sin. In one long planned sacrifice, all sin is forgiven. A plan geminated at the first bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden so long ago, a woman deceived by evil. Sin entered the word at that first bite. A plan ever playing out until one bright morning when woman discover a tomb empty, no body and an angel with clarification. Their task is to go and tell the disciples, a woman now is the first to testify as to the resurrection of Jesus, the HOPE of redemption from the act so long ago. The wrong of so long ago perpetrated by Eve is now brought full circle to be righted and the first to go and tell are the Daughters of Eve. That is life full circle. That is THE story for every person who trusts Christ as Savior and then Lord.

HE is RISEN!

He is Risen INDEED!



In HIS Service and Yours
Bro G

Heard on the bus!

                Here in Effingham County Spring Break has always been connected to Easter. Either before Easter which I have disliked or it has come following Easter. One morning on the bus a student was counting the days until spring break. I thought only employees did that. She recognized that we have Good Friday off followed by a week at spring break. We were all glad of that. She surprised me with what she said next. She said I don’t get Good Friday. I thought for a moment what is there not to get. I answered for Christians it is the day we celebrate when Jesus was crucified on a cross. Maybe the title Good Friday came from God Friday because it sure is not a good thing. Without missing a beat as we slowly rolled through the middle school parking lot another student said but it was good because Jesus died for our sins on that Friday. I agreed, yes it was good for that and then we were at the high school, stopped and they got off.

                The things you hear on the bus! I was stunned by the conversation at all but delighted in the responses. Good Friday, it seems mislabeled. Crucified between two thieves as if a thief, Jesus barely recognizable as human this could not be good. The only good thing it seemed is he died quickly even before his legs were to be broken. Some consolation to die quickly. God is dead! Good Friday whaaaaaaat?

                All of creation had been groaning for relief from sin. In one long planned sacrifice all sin is forgiven. A plan geminated at the first bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden so long ago, a woman deceived by evil. A plan ever playing out until one bright morning when two woman discover an empty tomb, no body, an angel with instructions. Her task is to go and tell the disciples, a woman now is the first to testify as to the resurrection of Jesus, the HOPE of redemption from the act so long ago.  Now THAT’S a plan.

                This week I have heard some less than wonderful things on the bus. Evidence of the depravity of man, the consequences of sin and the corresponding collateral damage to children. It makes it look like all is lost. It looks like Good Friday was not good at all from any standpoint. Probably just what the followers of Jesus thought as they tried to make sense of what they had witnessed on Good Friday. I just didn’t seem good. It just didn’t seem planned. It just didn’t. Just like dark days, weeks, months, years in our lives. They just don’t seem good. Sure all sin has been purchased by Jesus and dealt with once and for all but I’m still dead! Where is the hope in that?

                The greatest symbol of hope is not the cross but rather the empty tomb. It was empty before the women got there. It was empty before the stone was rolled away. It had been used but now was empty. The stone rolled away not so Jesus could leave but so we could enter in. Our invitation to enter into life eternal with Him.

 

 Death has been swallowed up in victory. 55 Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? 56 Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 58 Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:54-58 HCSB

                I head on the bus, this one day, HOPE. More days need hope in them maybe even heard on the bus!

 Happy Resurrection Day!        

Bro G